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CFN's Instant Analysis of Ohio State's 26-17 win over
Oregon in the Rose Bowl.
Third downs were Oregon's undoing
Ohio State, and Alabama in the SEC Championship, showed how
you stop the spread offense like Oregon likes to run and Florida
would like to run when the ground game is working well: you keep
the chains moving.
Ohio State didn’t shut down the Duck offense, but it
came up with great play after great play on third downs to get
Jeremiah Masoli off the field, and Terrelle Pryor was able to keep
the chains moving to help the Buckeyes hold the ball for 41:37.
Give Oregon’s defense credit for holding up late, but when
the offense is up-tempo and it’s not producing on third
downs, drives can be very short and the rhythm of the attack can be
gone.
It’s going to be tough to stop Oregon next year with so
many stars coming back, and it took one of the best defenses in
America, and the best game of Pryor’s career, to pull off the
Rose Bowl win, but let this game be a lesson on what to do, at
least in theory.
1. The defensive tackles have to get penetration and keep the
quarterback from taking off. 2. The linebackers have to be
disciplined enough to not overpursue, just like they were defending
the wishbone or a Georgia Tech/Navy offense. 3. The offense has GOT
to keep the chains moving. Time of possession might be an overblown
stat, especially because so many teams can strike quickly, but
being able to hang on to the ball is a must. 4. Have safeties who
can sniff out the tight ends going down the seam. This can happen
only if the linebackers are good enough to hold their own on the
outside.
This is all easier said than done, and as Jimmy Johnson said
when asked how to stop it, you simply need to have talented,
athletic defenders.
Think of it this way; it took EVERYTHING to work perfectly
for a team as good as Ohio State to beat an Oregon team that never
got into a groove. The Buckeyes might have won, but if it’s
possible, Oregon was every bit as scary in defeat. The
possibilities are endless going into 2010 … for both teams.
— Pete Fiutak
Pryor has a coming-out party
Did the nation just witness the coming-out party for Terrelle
Pryor as a complete package behind center?
Maligned as a passer during his sophomore season, Pryor
delivered one of the best games of his two-year career, repeatedly
hurting Oregon with his legs and really making strides as a
thrower. Called many things since arriving from Jeanette, Pa.,
he’ll forever be known as a Rose Bowl-winning quarterback.
And there aren’t many Buckeyes who can boast that label.
It’s old news that Pryor is a freakishly good athlete
for a player of his size, but his strength may be the most
overrated aspect of his game. How many times did he spin free from
a possible tackle or stiff-arm a Duck in order to pick up more
yards? It had to be at least a half-dozen times, and each one left
the Oregon players feeling helpless and frustrated. Pryor the
passer, however, was the biggest surprise for those who’ve
followed his career. By going 23-of-37 for 266 yards, two
touchdowns, and a pick, he set all kinds of personal highs through
the air, but it was the final scoring drive that could wind up
being a turning point in his career.
Up by two with about eight minutes left, Ohio State did not
want to give the ball back to Jeremiah Masoli with the game on the
line. The Buckeyes had seen enough of his late-game heroics on
film. Pryor’s answer? He calmly led his team down the field,
culminating a back-breaking drive with a beautiful 17-yard
touchdown pass to DeVier Posey. And just like that a star was
reborn. Is Pryor exactly where he needs to be as a quarterback? Not
yet, but he certainly took a giant step in that direction Friday
evening in Pasadena.
— Richard Cirminiello
Now can everyone get off Tressel's back?
1. Maybe, just maybe, we can put the Jim Tressel bashing to
bed. Forever.
No coach with more success has been bagged on throughout the
past nine seasons than Mister Sweater Vest. You can argue with his
choices at times, and you can say that his quarterback coaching
failed to hit the mark for portions of the 2009 season. But with
the sole exceptions of Pete Carroll and Bob Stoops, no man won more
conference titles in the just-ended decade than Tressel, a model of
consistency each and every year.
Why has that consistency emerged, you might ask? Well, for
one thing, Tressel — like any successful coach — is a
first-rate leader who knows his personnel and owns an acute feel
for the personality of his ballclub. Ohio State’s main
strength — in almost every season (2006 would be an
exception) — is its combination of defense and kicking, and
so it has been both sound and wise for Tressel to lean on those
pillars in the crucible of gameday competition. The TresselBall
formula has so often been assailed in recent years, and while the
pigskin portraits created by Ohio State teams have not been
aesthetically pleasing, they’ve regularly produced Big Ten
championships and BCS bowls.
And now, that TresselBall recipe has cooked up a Rose Bowl
win, a strong and convincing one against an Oregon team that
validated Mr. Sweater Vest’s football philosophy.
Ohio State’s field goal kicking produced 12 points
while Oregon’s Morgan Flint — not trusted by a nervous
Chip Kelly in the first three quarters — unsurprisingly
missed his crucial late kick. The Bucks’ defense thoroughly
contained Oregon’s offense, holding a Pac-10 juggernaut
— the same one that threw down 47 points against USC, 44
against Arizona, and 37 against Oregon State — to a mere 17
points. Sure, some of the Ducks’ miscues were unforced, but
that does nothing to diminish the intelligence of the Tressel Way
and its compatibility with this Ohio State program in its current
structured and form.
Terrelle Pryor did play much better in this game, and the
Buckeyes were certainly more aggressive with No. 2 than they had
been in the regular season, but let’s not think that Tressel
re-invented the wheel on the first day of 2010. Short passing and
— in the fourth quarter — a repeated use of a simple
play, a designed rollout keeper, were enough to give Pryor the
safety zone he needed as a signal caller. This wasn’t a
pyrotechnic display from the Bucks against the Ducks. OSU scored
just two touchdowns and still struggled in the red zone. Pryor put
a number of balls up for grabs, and was bailed out by tight end
Jake Ballard on a crucial catch in the fourth quarter.
Nevertheless, because Ohio State limited its mistakes while the
nervous and sloppy Ducks repeatedly misfired, the old-school Big
Ten coach outschemed and outmaneuvered the guru of the spread
option and an up-tempo attack that got slowed down in Pasadena.
The body of work attached to Jim Tressel’s name is
formidable and prodigious, a grand portfolio that 110 FBS programs
would kill for. As has been said so many times over the past few
years, the coaches that deserve to be ripped — eviscerated
and castigated — are the coaches at programs that can never
even get to a BCS bowl or win a single conference title. Tressel
— like Bob Stoops, another high-level winner of the first
order — is not the kind of cat who should be clawed at by the
Fourth Estate. Maybe this defining and oh-so-sweet triumph will
keep the vultures away from Columbus for a very long time to come.
2. There’s no need to shy from it. There’s no
point in trying to deny it any longer: While many bowl games
don’t — and shouldn’t — be seen as
referenda on a conference, the 2010 Rose Bowl most certainly was a
referendum on the Pac-10, and the results didn’t measure up
for West Coast football advocates.
Oregon — disjointed, sweaty-palmed and just plain
pee-in-the-pants nervous in its first BCS bowl game, a sharp
contrast to an Ohio State crew that regularly plays in these kinds
of environments — failed to deliver the goods. The Ducks got
overpowered at times, and Jeremiah Masoli was much more like the
uncertain field general last seen in early September. Chip Kelly
lost his customary boldness when he didn’t go for a first
down on 4th and 1 late in the fourth quarter. A stack of silly
penalties prolonged multiple Ohio State drives, and LeGarrette
Blount lost focus on the fumble that towered over every other snap
in the shadows of the San Gabriel Mountains. In the Pac-10, this UO
offense was a juggernaut, but against the beef and brawn of the
Bucks, Oregon flinched.
It’s harsh, and it’s probably not entirely fair
to say so, but it’s still USC and the nine dwarfs out
West… at least when it comes to main-event January battles
when all the cameras in the Western Hemisphere are trained on one
solitary gridiron. This game should make people appreciate just how
impressive Pete Carroll’s New Year’s Day
accomplishments have been over the past several years. Meanwhile,
the Pac-10 cannot be considered the best conference in college
football in 2009.
— Matt Zemek
