We can only hopeIt seems like we've been looking for a lot of silver linings recently. It's human nature to weather bad storms by gritting our teeth and trying to find something positive to take away from the whatever stupid/ridiculous/absurd misfortune has befallen us, and the Ohio State football fanbase is no exception. I'm excited to see what the younger players can do or It's a lesson that we can learn from or, my personal favorite, Hey, maybe with someone else calling the shots OSU will score 70 a game.
The first two sentiments I can somewhat agree with. It is going to be a lot of fun seeing who steps up to take on crucial roles on the team as the spring and summer progress, and hopefully Jim Tressel and Ohio State have learned something from the mess they created. The third is a lot harder to swallow, and falls much closer to the category of "wishful thinking."
One thing that I want to point out today is that no offense can be installed and run to hilarious, mid-90's style Cornhusker perfection in a year (or in a few months, as is the case here). It's a testament to Terrelle Pryor's verve that he was able to play as well as he did as a true freshman, but his relatively significant success in the 2008 season was due mostly to raw athletic ability rather than any firm grasp of offensive concepts. He was also, of course, aided by a somewhat hobbled veteran running back named Beanie Wells, whose 8 games of 100 yards or more of rushing buoyed an otherwise struggling offense.
This year, for the first five games, several guys who were supposed to be playing the veteran role on offense that Beanie once played will be gone, and that leaves a group of largely untested freshmen and sophomores to fill in their shoes. It won't be easy.
The competition at quarterback might be the most difficult to prognosticate for future success. Joe Bauserman has been impressing in practice recently, Kenny Guiton remains a wildcard, and Braxton Miller has been viewed as the next great OSU QB. But consider this: as a true freshman in 2008, Terrelle Pryor only managed to pass for more than 200 yards once, against Penn State in a 6-13 loss. For the season, Pryor was only averaging a hair under 150 yards of total offense per game. Though Braxton is considered to be a much more polished passer as a freshman than Pryor had been, if he ends up being the starter as many have been hoping and predicting it's likely he'll need some significant help from the running back position to smooth out the inevitable rough patches as a coaching staff struggles to adapt their system to a QB with different talents than their current star.
Luckily running back is the one position where OSU has an almost comical wealth of talent. Jaamal Berry, Jordan Hall, Carlos Hyde, and Rod Smith all have the talent and potential to be featured backs at OSU, but it is critically important that the coaching staff choose one of these guys to lead the way. Whoever ends up at QB is going to have to develop a rapport with the guy behind him, and if both players are being constantly shuffled as the season begins there could be significant problems behind center. I'm not suggesting that running back by committee can't work, but what I am saying is that in the first five games of 2011, it won't help the team.
Wide receiver should also be a crucial position to determine in the coming months, and this issue only serves to re-emphasize the necessity of finding players to step up, and quickly. This is also where lack of senior leadership is going to hurt the most. Chris Fields, T.Y. Williams, Corey Brown, and James Louis are all incredibly green and had they been able to play their first season as starters with an established, solid QB throwing to them, their learning curve for college football might not be so steep. As it is, they will find themselves in the unenviable position of having to bail out their QB as much as he will have to for them.
The 2008 Ohio State offense was 45th in the country in scoring per game, and 76th in total yardage per game, which isn't a travesty, but it also represents the lowest totals that OSU had in the past five seasons. In 2010, after three years of continuous improvement with mostly the same personnel, OSU ranked 11th in scoring and 20th in total offense.
Offensive prowess doesn't happen overnight, or even over the course of a summer. People seriously expecting Ohio State to suddenly break loose from the shackles of a Jim Tressel offensive gameplan are going to find themselves in for a rude awakening as they're confronted with a group of very young and inexperienced players who will likely struggle with the task given to them. Is 5-0 a possibility? Sure. But those who view it as a near certainty might be in for some bitter disappointment.
