Ohio State 42, Oregon 20
It wasn’t pretty, by any means. It was sloppy — and brutal. Brutus brutalized the hapless Ducks to the tune of 42-20 even while turning the ball over four times. Thus, it could have been a lot more brutal. Nevertheless, it was a satisfying display of power football, even for a turkey who thought Oregon would win in a shootout.
Third-string quarterback Cardale Jones and the underrated (no longer) running back Zeke Elliott had the benefit of a great offensive line that protected Jones while enabling Elliott to gobble up 246 rushing yards and blast through for four touchdowns. Although the Duck defense did a pretty good job of spying on Jones, limiting him to 38 yards on the ground, he was able to complete 16 passes for 242 yards and a touchdown with one interception.
Duckwise, the vaunted Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota was thwarted by a swarming, cranked-up defense led by sophomore Joey Bosa, who could probably start in the NFL tomorrow. Although hampered by the loss of a couple of decent receivers, Mariota’s inability to work his magic, particularly in the red zone, was the story of the game. Oregon had been used to rolling over opponents, putting 50 points on the board at will. That they could do so at will against the Buckeyes proved to be a canard. This turkey is now a believer.
We Didn’t See This Team in 2014
The Buckeyes’ effectiveness in the three games beginning with the blowout win over Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship game, continuing in the Sugar Bowl win over highly regarded Alabama, and culminating in a flawed, but dominating National Championship game performance could not have been extrapolated from our earlier season experience with Ohio State, in which the Lions hung in to tie the game at 17 in regulation. After the loss to Vagina Tech the second week of the season, many had pronounced Ohio State dead. I know one guy who thought they had little talent; he thought they were about the third best team in the conference. So what happened?
Hell, I don’t know. I would have never predicted the blowout against the Badgers. I would have laughed (and did) if anyone suggested that these guys could beat ‘Bama. And no way would they ever be able to go all the way — no way! But they did.
I have to believe Urban Meyer is a big reason. Sure, they have superior talent at a lot of positions. But all this success with second- or third-string quarterbacks tells us more than the mere fact that they have depth at that position. Meyer gets his guys up for big games. That’s something history can show. I’m too lazy to go back and dig up all the games the Gators were supposed to lose, but through the fog of an aging memory, I vaguely remember them. It all sort of comes back.
Offensive genius and Broyles Award winner Tom Herman, who is now Houston’s head coach, deserves a lot of the credit. However, Meyer has to be recognized as a superior judge of talent, having hired Herman away from Iowa State while assembling his coaching staff in advance of the 2012 season. Paternoists everywhere recognize this because he hired Larry Johnson, Sr. away from Penn State, and give him sole credit for the run to the championship, but I digress.
So, what we saw on the evening of October 25 was a team that came out with “that dullard look” and underachieved. Same thing with Vagina Tech. I’ll blame Meyer as much as anything else for not getting his guys up for the “little games” as he does for the big games. Clearly, he and the troops didn’t think much of Penn State or Virginia Tech, so they weren’t playing particularly well. Perhaps they were looking down the road two weeks to the Moo U. game. Maybe not. But whatever it was, we didn’t see this team in Beaver Stadium.
This was power football and it left no questions among the doubters who discounted Ohio State and the grousers who thought someone else should have been #4 seed. Could Baylor or TCU have won like this? I think Ohio State vindicated itself and the College Football Playoff selection system. They also did the Big Ten proud for a change and made believers out of Reno — they have been installed as an early 9-2 favorite to repeat next year.
Hats off to the Buckeyes!*
*For today, they deserve to be the Buckeyes. They’ll be back to being the Schmuckeyes by the start of the 2015 season.
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K. John says
No Turkey, the team we saw last night was pretty much the same team Penn State defeated on the field of play back in October. They didn’t play poorly. They weren’t flat. Their offense had peaked the previous two weeks but then they ran into the best defense in the country and one particularly well suited to defending it, and it showed. The difference was Penn State’s defense was disciplined, focused and ready to lay waste to Meyer’s gimmick laden offense.
I think the story of last night’s game, which the Turkey partially touched on, was 50% execution by Oregon’s offense, 35% execution by Oregon’s defense (they apparently forgot how to tackle in the week plus since the Rose Bowl where they did a good job of it) and 15% Ohio State (offensive game plan). Oregon wasn’t ready for the game. Ohio State was. The game got away from Oregon.
The Nittany Turkey says
Right. The team was pretty much the same (substitute Jones for Barrett) as the one that defeated Penn State in two overtimes. They were flat in that game. They didn’t play well. No discredit meant to the Penn State defense, but if the Buckeyes had been as fired up for the Penn State game as they had been for the past three games on their schedule, the outcome would have been substantially different. It would have been closer to what we saw last night, except that Penn State would have scored fewer points than Oregon did. The Penn State defense did indeed hold Zeke Elliott to 109 yards, which is one helluva lot better than what Oregon did. I think the Lions played a decent game, but I also think that the Buckeyes were uninspired.
This year’s Nittany Lions didn’t scare anyone into playing their asses off against them. The Buckeyes probably thought the Nits would be pushovers, so they figured they could mail it in. And for the first half, they were right. Penn State’s second half adjustment was to start playing football, which must have slowly shocked the Buckeyes into the reality that they had to actually play football themselves. They had let the game get away from them by being too complacent.
Hack’s still a weapon, and will be a better one if he gets some receivers who can get open and catch, although I don’t see the offensive line improving much next year. They opted for a couple of giant traffic cones, so we’ll see. With Donovan Smith leaving, though, it seems like there isn’t a light at the end of the O-Line tunnel anywhere near. They’ll stick the 6’8″ Juco guy in there at Left Statue and see what happens. The line will suck again, but you’ll blame Donovan so it will be ok. But anyhow, I digress.
Hey, give the Buckeyes credit for playing a dominating game for a change, willya? They are legitimate national champs.
—TNT
Joe says
Not even close to being the same team K. John. First of all Cardale Jones looks like he should be playing in the NFL; we faced Barrett and there is no comparison between what Jones accomplished in their last three games and what Barrett accomplished during the regular season. Their OL got exponentially better as the season ran it’s course. They did not look this good against PS. Meyer/Herman knew how to use Jones, hand the ball to Elliott and throw deep sideline passes to his receivers. Even Saban admitted after their loss that they underestimated the arm strength of Jones. It was a simple, but effective (obviously) game plan. And even with 4 OSU fumbles, Oregon only made it a game for a brief period of time, but even rushing 3 and dropping 8, they couldn’t effectively stop the Bucks passing game and the OL consistently opened gaping holes for Elliott that he took full advantage of.
And that PS defense had us down 17-0 at the half and couldn’t stop Barrett from scoring in each of the OT’s. OSU lost interest in that game and if it wasn’t for a Zettel’s pick six and a “hope he catches it heave” in the fourth, that game was in the OSU win column. When PS scored first in OT, I think OSU realized it was time to shit or get off the pot.
OSU was on a mission going in to the B1G championship-needed that blowout win to impress the judges and after they got in, they just outplayed Bama and the Ducks and yes they were the better team in both games. They are for real and I would not be surprised if they’re in the Championship game next year.
We’ve got a long way to go to get to their level, if we ever get there!
K. John says
Keep deluding yourselves. I am right and you darn well know it. Ohio State came out fired up. Maybe not as fired up as last night but fired up nonetheless. They were not flat all. They got handled. They were beaten 17 to 7 in regulation and the game wasn’t that close because Ohio State, whose offense was peaking couldn’t sustain drives against the best defense in the country. Which is exactly what you would expect to happen to a gimmicky offense.
The Nittany Turkey says
No penalty for deluding myself, if that’s what I’m doing. Differences of opinion are what make the world of sports go ’round.
Penn State did play a good second half on October 25. Nobody can say they weren’t inspired, but why the hell did they come out like a bunch of lumps in the first half? Hell, with OSU being flat in that game, if they had played well for four quarters, they would have had a good chance at winning that one. After all, OSU came out flat for Va Tech and Minnesota, losing one and coming close to losing the other. The only way the Nittany Lions could have conceivably won indeed would have been for OSU to have been similarly flat in their game — and they were! Too bad PSU didn’t play decent football in the first half.
Anyhow, the best defense in the country is an interesting proposition, but a 7-6 record speaks for itself. The competition faced by PSU had a lot to do with the excellent numbers posted by the defense, which certainly had its flaws. Aside from the fact that the offense didn’t give them very much (if any) of a cushion, they looked very ordinary at times, with a couple of standouts making big plays while other guys missed tackles and didn’t cover receivers. In my opinion, this was not the best defense in the country.
As for a gimmicky offense, I believe OSU played some pretty good fundamental football. Pullin’ and trappin’ is not gimmicky (unless you have five traffic cones who can’t pull or trap). Straight-ahead power football and a dual-threat quarterback are not gimmicky. Most of the gimmicks we saw this year came from Donovan’s playbook, not the opponents’.
Excuses, excuses. You’re acting like a 7-6 team could beat the national champs. Theoretically and in your mind, they could, but I don’t think so.
If I’m the delusional one here, so be it!
—TNT
Joe says
“We Are . . . Delusional!”
The Nittany Turkey says
Speaking of defense, with the 18th best defense in the NFL, the Steelers thought a change would be beneficial. Le Beau had been there for what? Eleven years? I don’t think it was his fault that the defense got old. You’re right about Polamalu — he didn’t make a single memorable play this year. What wasn’t old was hurt — or both! (Case in point: Ike Taylor.)
Let’s hope that this particular Butler doesn’t turn out to be like the other one we know.
—TNT
Joe says
I’m keeping my fingers and toes crossed.
The Nittany Turkey says
Hey, by the way, what was with the yellow confetti? Seems like whoever arranged that pre-anointed the Ducks as the winner. If that was true, it was classless. With all the money involved in this game, they should have had both scarlet and yellow available. Am I being paranoid, or is my assessment accurate?
—TNT
Joe says
The gold represented all the money that Jones made for hosting the game at his ballpark; it had nothing to do with which team was the eventual winner.