Prayers to everyone involved in Columbus' rush hour this morning. The forecast calls for snow, and large swaths of Columbus drivers are atrocious during the summer, let alone a day like today.
ICYMI: relive the 31-24 victory over Minnesota:
- Five things.
- The debriefing.
- The infographic.
- The quotebook.
- OSU clocks-in at No. 7 in both the AP Top 25 and Coaches Poll.
Miscellaneous:
- Philly Brown hauled in his first professional touchdown reception (video) and made a kid's day.
- Ohio State will attempt regulating the Mirror Lake Jump again.
MICHAEL BENNETT GETS ANGRY. The defensive line was expected to be one of the team's strengths entering the season, and even though Noah Spence was also expected to factor into that equation, the unit hasn't performed up to expectations. (That's not to suggest the defensive line has been slouchy.)
The defensive line is not as deep... especially along the interior... as was expected. The constant rotation Larry Johnson Sr. promised upo hasn't materialized (for unknown reasons to the simpleton typing this) either.
One area with which the d-line has struggled (at times) is against the run. Minnesota running back David Cobb dropped 147 yards (at 5.5 yards a tote) and three touchdowns on Saturday.
Granted, OSU's linebackers shoulder some blame, and Cobb is likely a future NFL back, but those numbers are unacceptable for a team with championship aspirations. It's not as if Minnesota was re-inventing the offensive wheel or running the triple option.
So, I did like Michael Bennett getting fired up at halftime of a then 17-14 ball game. From Bill Landis of the Northeast Media Group (via IrishFury):
"I don't know what makes the rest of the guys mad, but watching the running back run up the middle of our defense (makes me mad)," Bennett said. "I let them know that I wasn't happy about it. I felt like there was a lot of apathy. We only let them get 14 points. I felt like we shouldn't have let them get any.
"It was mostly just a call to action. We can't be OK with that. We can let the run up the ball. We're better than that. We need to form a wall, not let that running back through. I don't know many times in the second half that they did."
Cobb "only mustered" 49 yards in the second half (though he did score on a 12-yard rumble), so it looks like Bennett's speech had some sort of an impact on the improved efforts of the second half.
MINESOTA LB: TCU BETTER THAN OSU. Ohio State's 31-24 scoreline might not impress anyone who didn't watch the game, but Ohio State controlled the entire affair. The closeness of the final score had much more to do with Buckeye mistakes than Gopher play.
I am, however, an admittedly a biased man who only knows enough about college football to shoehorn puerile internet jokes into kindergarten-level writing. So, what say you, Minnesota linebacker De'Vondre Campbell?
From Ryan Gerbosi of Sports News Fort Worth:
“Ohio State was probably the second-best team we’ve played this year, behind TCU,” Minnesota linebacker De’Vondre Campbell said following the loss.
“I think TCU was a lot better. So it kind of helped us prepare a lot more, knowing coming into this game that we played a team that was similar to how they played,” Campbell said.
Interesting take, Mr. Campbell. To his credit, he seems confident the Gophers will get another crack at the Buckeyes:
“We’ll see them again in three weeks,” Campbell said, referring to the Big Ten championship game.
“I think we have a great chance to beat Nebraska and Wisconsin. We’ve just got to get back to the lab tomorrow, correct our mistakes from today and I think we’ll be fine,” Campbell said.
Playing Minnesota (again) in the Big Ten championship game would be a nightmare scenario for the Buckeyes. I love Jerry Kill, and Minnesota isn't terrible, but Ohio State will get no love from the voters if Minnesota makes it to the title game.
I'm already mad enough Nebraska and fellow cat guardian Bo Pelini got shit on by Melvin Gordon. (Seems Pelini's seat is getting warmer, too.) I don't even want to think about Ohio State needing a final playoff push and seeing Minnesota trot out of the tunnel in Indianapolis.
But if it did happen, I think Mr. Campbell would get a glimpse at the difference in Ohio State in a climate-controlled dome vs. a tundra in Minneapolis. (By the way, on Saturday TCU surrendered 30 points to Kansas. Yes, the Kansas whose fans tore down goalposts after beating a 2-7 Iowa State team.)
SPARTANS STILL SALTY. Michigan State, to its credit, bounced back on Saturday vs. Maryland (and moved into the Top 10 of both the Coaches Poll and the AP Top 25). However, Spartan corner Trae Waynes had some interesting post-game words about the loss to Ohio State:
From Graham Couch of The Lansing State Journal:
"Never underestimate anybody," junior cornerback Trae Waynes said Saturday night, after MSU moved to 8-2 but remained firmly out of Big Ten title and national playoff contention. "I think we had too big of heads going into that game and it was a reality check.
"We just took them for granted. We didn't look at (Buckeyes QB) J.T. Barrett as we should have. It was a learning experience. We practiced hard this week. We don't take anything lightly anymore."
Hmmm. Let's run that one back real quick:
Pressers starting. Connor Cook and Taiwan Jones. Jones on J.T. Barrett, says he has a "better arm" and is "a way better QB than Braxton."
— Joe Rexrode (@joerexrode) November 4, 2014
NOT ALL SPARTANS UNDERESTIMATED J.T. BARETT, although Spartan defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi did admit J.T. Barrett was much more accurate than he expected.
The drubbing in East Lansing, though, is what happens when one team fails to adequately prepare. (And if any team — let alone a one-loss team vying for playoff contention — fails to prepare for a team coached by Urban Meyer, then it deserves that boot lodged into the deepest, most unholy reaches of its anal cavity.)
GOODBYE, FRANK CLARK. Michigan's top defensive player, defensive end Frank Clark, was pinched on a domestic violence charge in Erie County over the weekend. Domestic violence is always a particularly heinous crime (#hottake alert), but if the police report of the incident is to be believed, then Frank Clark should see some time behind bars.
From Andy Ouriel of The Sandusky Register:
The victim, Clark's live-in girlfriend, told Perkins police Officer Martin Curran how he allegedly punched her in the face, breaking a hotel room lamp as she fell.
The victim's brother, who'd just emerged from the hotel room shower at the time, reportedly saw Clark grab the victim by her neck and slam her to the ground.
[...]
The caller also saw and reported three small children running from the room, with one supposedly saying, "Frank is killing our sister." One child, the victim's brother, said Clark hit his sister.
I get the whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing, but Michigan football isn't the American justice system. It's not an unalienable right to play college football, and domestic violence isn't a petty crime. Frank Clark should at least be suspended until the legal case runs its course.
SPORTS: LARGELY BAD. I love sports, but most of the time, I hate sports.
Georgia running back Todd Gurley, once the Heisman front-runner and consensus best back available in the 2015 NFL draft, returned from exile this weekend. Because sports are the worst (damn you to Hell, Florida State), Gurley promptly tore his ACL.
If Gurley were the selfish person people tried to paint him as because he had the audacity to trade petty cash for his signature, Gurley would've never returned to play for a university that threw him under the bus. Instead, he would've taken the cash and ran, and he'd have been smarter (and healthier) for it.
If anybody in football deserves an alien-like ACL recovery, it's that dude.
THOSE WMDs. From Chris: What Happens on the Internet in 60 Seconds... Popeye, as the kids say, had no chill... Soviet Poster of the Day dot Tumblr dot com... a stop-motion film of a skeleton from 1897... ‘Dingo’s Got My Baby’: Lindy Chamberlain's Trial by Media... RG3, loooool.
