While the sight of college football tonight may ease the pain for some of you, we all know these next 2 days are possibly the longest of the year. Your legs twitch uncontrollably, you can't sleep starting tonight and the nervous sensation in your stomach just won't go away.
It's been Buckeye overload for me the last couple of days, as I tried to catch up on a week's worth of news. I know we all just simply need an actual game to talk about, but I still came across a couple of topics that I thought needed discussed further before Saturday's opener.
Up-Tempo offense coming our way
My first impression from watching Ohio State'e televised practice was the sveltness of Ohio State's offensive line, as Boone, Rehring and Person each look as if they have lost 20+ pounds. Apparently they are ready for the no-huddle offense Ohio State has been practicing this fall.
Ken Gordon pointed to Beanie's comments Tuesday about going exclusively to the no-huddle and calling plays by signals. Are we going to see an up-tempo style from the beginning? The depth is undoubtedly there and will only add to the excitement for this season.
Controversial Replays will now be shown in Ohio Stadium.
It has always been frustrating at the Shoe when you are not able to see a replay of any close call, but it was announced Tuesday that will be coming to an end. Ohio State is now able to show these types of plays, but they can only show it once and it can't be any slower than 75 percent, so don't get in an argument with a blue hair when they tell you to sit down and stop booing, because your going to miss the replay.
Field Goals, is there reason for concern?
The numbers from the kick scrimmage were disappointing last week. Jason touched on it, but Gene Smith's smack down of Time Warner overshadowed the dreadful numbers put up by the kickers, as the three combined to make only 10/20 attempts, with three of those being blocked.
Ryan Pretorius made 17 of 21 field goals last year, with 2 of those misses from 30-39 and three attempts being blocked. He made only 5 of 8 in the scrimmage, connecting on longs of 47 and 53, but missed from 35, 48 and 42 yards. It has been some time since the game came down to a field goal, but I have a feeling 3 points will be huge in Los Angeles and Madison this year and OSU can ill afford to take a step back in the kicking game. Does anyone feel concerned or is OSU's high octane offense going to make FG's obsolete this year?
The Motts
Help Spread the Word
If there is one thing you know we like to do around here, it is give away free stuff. In an effort to try and spread our Buckeye passion we have created the 11W Sticker 2.0 (1.0 is a collector's item currently blowing up on eBay), shown here and would love to send some your way and possibly a few for your Buckeye friends. Simply contact me at corey@elevenwarriors.com and we'll be sure to get some out to you.
No Michigan mailing addresses will be accepted.
Side note -- anybody interested in this print as desktop wallpaper?
