Saturday's Recap

I wasn't supremely impressed with Saturday's 37-7 against the University of Cincinnati. Cincinnati made a game of it through the first half, as the Buckeyes managed to tally only 13 first half points. The second half was a different story, as it was all Ohio State in the final two stanzas. Ted Ginn's second touchdown of the afternoon halfway through the 3rd quarter gave the Buckeyes some much needed breathing room, making the score 20-7 with 7:10 remaining in the period. With 10 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter Antonio Pittman broke a run from scrimmage off for 48 yards, which came right at Joy and I in our 13 AA Row 2 seats. Ted Ginn actually had a very good downfield block- around the 7 yard line- that paved the way for Pittman's jaunt to the north end zone. The Pittman TD gave the Buckeyes a 27-7 lead, and a late TD and 52 yard Ryan Pretorious field goal gave the Buckeyes the 30 point home victory.

Random thoughts, Notes, Stats....
As I stated earlier, this really wasn't a great game for the Buckeyes. Of course, we as Buckeye fans were spoiled a week earlier with a spectacular win at then number 2 ranked Texas, and I suppose that coming out a little flat should not have surprised anyone. This game was for the most part relatively vanilla, with the exception being two Ted Ginn touchdowns and a nice fourth quarter Antonio Pittman touchdown run that iced the game.

I really thought going into this game that we'd blow Cincy out. We did, of course, but I thought it would be much sexier than what it was. I believe that Coach Tressel and his staff knew that they were much, much better than Cincy and they didn't really need to open things up against the Bearcats. I felt that Ohio State should've utilized their team speed much more, and we really only threw the ball deep a few times. (Come on Tress, don't you know fans are paying 62 bucks a pop to walk in the door this year? Let's give 'em their money's worth uh?)

The stat that really jumps out at me is the 10 passing first downs that Cincinnati had. If Penn State is to have success this Saturday at the 'Shoe, it's looking as if it will be through future All-Big Ten WR Derrick Williams and fellow WR Deon Butler. I think that the secondary is still cause for concern, but much like Texas, Penn State has a first year QB that will be able to be rattled.

One area of concern for the Buckeyes is the punt retuns. With having the best punt returner in the country in Ginn, I don't think that Tress is doing a good enough job getting him the blocking that he needs to be successful. To be successful, we need to look at what we did in '04 when at Northwestern Tress went to the two-deep punt return team of Santonio Holmes and Ted Ginn and there was instant success. We utilized the two-deep system for most of the 05 campaign and I think it is only a matter of time before we get back to it. In all likelihood I think we will see more of Tony Gonzalez in the two-deep with Ginn, but it wouldn't surprise me to see
"the new Santonio Holmes," Roy Small in that position at different times. Much like the '04 season's special teams, Ohio State isn't getting the quality of blocking to be successful in return punts. Antonio Smith, who has been a nice surprise at cornerback this fall, has not been getting it done in blocking the other team's gunner. Much like in '04 as well, with a lot of new faces on the punt return team (Carpenter, Hawk, Schlegel, Hamby, Holmes were 5 names that played a big part in the success of the punt return team) which is contributing to the lack of success at only 8.7 yards per return.
I've already started to break down how OSU and Penn State matchup against each other this weekend, and I'll get into that a little later in the week. Enjoy what should be a pretty good Monday Night game tonight between the Pittsburgh Steelers at the Jacksonville Jaguars. I'll take the Jaguars, 20-17.