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The Ohio State Buckeyes 2013 Final ranking: 12 2014 Preseason ranking: 6 Key losses: RB Carlos "El Guapo" Hyde. 4/5 of the best O-line in football. CB Bradley Roby (mediocre last year). LB Ryan Shazier, WR Philly Brown Offense: QB: Braxton Miller returns for his senior season in the best condition he's been in since his freshman year. He's coming off of shoulder surgery that really could have been done halfway through last season. He's arguably the most electric runner in college football this year, and he's likely going to leave as one of the top 3 Buckeye QBs in history. Cardale Jones has been named the backup. He's a power runner with a cannon arm who is famous for not being into book learning. JT Barrett and Stephen Collier sit behind him. Depth is concerning--since Jones has had minimal snaps. RB: Ezekiel Elliot is the likely starter. He's a home run threat every carry inside or out and a great receiver--not the best blocker though. Brionte Dunn or Rod Smith will be the likely power back, with Dunn having the edge since Rod Smith is a factory of disappointment. Curtis Samuel had Urban gushing, and he's a hybrid scatback, similar to Dontre Wilson last year. Warren Ball is likely the odd man out. Really good depth, but not as absurd as last year. WR: The best unit since the Holmes/Ginn/Gonzo/Robiskie/Hartline crew. Devin Smith is an incumbent starter, and he's a scary deep threat who can burn teams over the top consistently--needs work on shorter routes. Dontre Wilson will start as well, after spending last year at RB. He's according to the coaches, the best receiver on the roster at present, and having other threats on the team should let him breakout this season. The third receiver is likely either Corey Smith or Evan Spencer, with Smith taking the lead in spring. Past the top 4, Jalin Marshall has looked great but is injury prone, and Mike Thomas keeps running for the "Taurian Washington" award for guy who looks great every spring then never does anything. Top to bottom, the depth here is the best on the offense. TE: Jeff Heurman looked like and Urban Meyer TE last year and should be a consistent, if undersized, threat across the middle. Nick Vannett apparently looked like the 1b to his 1a in the spring. Marcus Baugh is perpetually in the doghouse for dumb poo poo, and JT Moore converted for depth. Noah Brown and Jeff Greene are flex receivers who will line up between here and WR, with Greene likely playing and Brown a potential redshirt. O-Line: Last year's best unit in OSU history is gone. Taylor Decker returns, likely at LT this year. Chad Lindsey transferred in from Alabama and looks like he can start at C right away but Jacoby Boren is challenging. Guards are likely Antonio Underwood and Pat Elfein who got a decent amount of time last year. One of Kyle Dodson or Daryll Baldwin will be at RT. If they gel, this will be a good group. They just need reps early. D-Line: Noah Spence is a potential first rounder at Rush End/Viper. Joey Bosa looked like a future top-10 pick as a freshman and will hold down the SSDE spot, likely mauling a lot of the Big 10 this year. Adolphus Washington moves full time to DT and is overqualified athletically for it. He's going to be a huge pain for any guard or C 1 on 1. Michael Bennett will likely be picked in the first two rounds after this year, and he's one of the best pass-rushing DTs in the nation as well. The main backups are Tyquan Lewis at DE and Tommy Schutt at DT. Lewis is a freak pass rusher, Schutt is more of a clogger in the middle. Steve Miller and Rashad Frazier also will rotate at DE, and Michael Hill will see snaps at DT as well. As a whole, there will be way more rotation, so 8-10 guys will play per game here with how Larry Johnson runs it. LBs: The best group Urban has had depth wise. Josh Perry is the only guaranteed started. Darron Lee and Chris Worley are fighting for the new SLB spot which is actually the smaller LB meant to cover TEs rather than the past concept of sticking a big LB or MLB on one. We will see how this plays out. MLB has incumbent Curtis Grant, but he's already being pushed by 5* freshman Raekwon McMillan who drawing Katzenmoyer comparisons based on how skilled he already is. Trey Johnson will back up Perry with noted bad football player Cam Williams hopefully not playing anywhere this year so that I don't have to watch him casually lumber towards RBs anymore. DBs: Isolating corners and safeties is difficult this year because there's going to be overlap with guys playing both. Vonn Bell, Tyvis Powell, and Cam Burrows are the candidates for starting at S with the first two having an edge. Loser gets the Nickel Corner spot likely. Starting corners are Doran Grant for sure and one of Gareon Conley or Armani Reeves. Hopefully Conley, since Reeves is famous for getting burned by Iowa's slow white TE on a vertical route last year. Eli Apple looks like a potential dime back for the year who could work up to a boundary corner by the end of the year. Erick Smith at safety looks like a potential candidate for early playing time. The cover 4 system Chris Ash is installing involves actual concepts like pressing and not giving 15 yard cushions to receivers like Sammy Watkins who will burn you with that kind of space. Looks drastically improved schematically already. K/P Sean Nuerenberger comes in very highly rated with a cannon leg. We always have good punters. Like there's 2 guys who could punt anywhere in the nation. OSU never worries about that poo poo. Schedule: at Navy: W, we won't lose to a triple option team with this kind of time to prepare VT W, this will be ugly and will make me drink. On the other hand, we're deep enough to break this open late. Unless their offense is way better than expected, we don't lose this Cincinnati W, this is a trap game of the highest order, but I don't think their defense can hold us for long enough. Also, they have a QB controversy, which always bodes well at the start of the season. at Maryland W, bahahahaha, welcome to the Big 10, it won't be this bad every week we promise Rutgers W See, Maryland, University of Illinois W, Tim Beckman can't even beat his fake rivals at Sparty Toss up, Depends how well Sparty reloads. This is a nailbiter, but I feel like our defensive changes give us a slight edge here. at Minnesota W, can't remember the last time we played them. Don't care. We won't lose to Jerry loving Kill. Indiana W, trap game. We don't play teams that focus on offense and don't play defense well. This will be high scoring and nerve wracking the whole way, unless the new coverage system is as advertised. Michigan W, We won't be losing to Hoke in the Shoe again. They don't have enough out wide to keep us honest this year. Big 10 Championship game: No one from the west is winning this. Wisconsin is good, but I will never be afraid of Joel Stave or their slow rear end defense. Nebraska would be awesome just because I enjoy watching Bo Pelini lose his mind when his QBs throw 2-3 picks a game Best case: We put it together in Urban year 3. Braxton is heisman-caliber and healthy. The new coverage system gives us the top 20 pass defense we're capable of. The D-line is as advertised. We make the playoff and beat the two best teams we will play all year to win Urban's first national title. 14-0 Worst case: Braxton goes down. Cardale Jones has growing pains. The O-line never gels. Coverage system stays bad. LBs look slow and confused. Still better than like 3/4 of the Big 10. Gator Bowl/Capital One bowl. 8-5/9-4 Likely Scenario; Best team Urban has had against a mediocre schedule. Pass defense improves to top 50. Pass rush remains deadly. We have Braxton for the big games but he misses 1 or 2 to an ankle or something because it's what he does. We get revenge on sparty and win the regular season, barely make it into the playoff. Lose in either round of the playoff, which still indicates significant improvement. 12-1/13-1 TheGreyGhost fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Aug 2, 2014 |
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Aug 2, 2014 02:57
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Frinkahedron posted:I think this is dead on. Experienced Bud Foster defense complete with the best secondary in the country vs a pretty brand new Ohio State offensive line? That'd make me drink too. Eh, brand new is a bit of a stretch. They've all had plenty of snaps in game-time. The problem is they rarely had to play together. From a talent standpoint, it's fine. They just need to be cohesive, and if they're not then this becomes a long night. That said, y'all won't be doing poo poo passing with a new quarterback in a hostile shoe against a press secondary and the best group pass rush in the nation. Your running game against ours for the game, so it'll go fast. The homer in me says it's going to come down to depth for the most part. We have 4-5 Running backs and Braxton to run at a front 7, and we're 5-6 deep at receiver. I see it close for 3 quarters and then a quick 10-14 points in the 4th when fatigue starts to set in. But it's still going to be so ugly for the first 3 quarters that I'll be hate-watching it.
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Aug 2, 2014 21:31
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DUNCAN DONUTS posted:Might be time to update this... Well, here's the updates I'll offer. - QB: Obviously with Braxton out, JT Barrett is now the guy. He's a way more accurate passer who thrives from the short-intermediate passes that Urban used more for the Florida offense than now, so the passing game will likely shift more towards that. He can run too, albeit not at Braxton's caliber. Biggest concern is his arm strength on the deep ball, but we can adjust the offense for that. This isn't like 3 years ago when Braxton was a freshman. We have the best set of skill players at OSU in close to a decade, and the offense is still going to put up some absurd numbers. Also, Barrett has literally been taking first-team snaps since spring, and he's been in the program for a year now. He has over 300 snaps taken before the injury even happened. We were winning games last year with Kenny Guiton having a small fraction of that and even less physical ability than JT. - RB: Elliot got wrist surgery, but he'll be ready for Navy as the likely starter. Rod Smith will be the power guy. Samuel and Dunn are splitting the RB3 carries. This unit probably sees more carries in general now since Barrett is a pass first dual threat.. - WR: Mike Thomas passed Evan Spencer at Split End, but both will play a lot. Devin and Dontre at flanker and pivot respectively with Corey Smith and Jalin Marshall as their backups. Realistically 10 guys could be seeing the field a game here. - Oline: Decker, Hale/Price, Boren/Lindsay, Elfein, Baldwin. LG and C will probably rotate the most on the line, but Hale and Boren are the probably starters. - Dline: Steve Miller and Rashad Frazier will be covering for Spence's suspension. Jalyn Holmes will likely be in on passing downs though. Tommy Schutt worked his way up to DT3 and will rotate in heavily. - LB: Lee, Grant, Perry as expected. Worley and McMillan to play a lot though. - CB: Grant remains bonafide CB1. Conley and Apple look like the probable guys at CB2. Armani Reeves at Nickel. Lattimore just had surgery, so no idea when he's back. Damon Webb competing for playing time in his place. - S: Powell and Bell are starting. Burrows will be the first backup for both and probably play some nickel too. Erick Smith looked really good in run support though, so he could see a lot of time too. Schedule: at Navy: W, Our front 7 is too good to lose this game. VT: Toss-up/Lean W, I'm still not conceding a win in the shoe happening here. We're way deeper, and frankly we weren't winning this game on Braxton's arm. We have too much in the front 7 for Beamer ball to work, and the press coverage should give the pass rush the time it needs to be effective. Running game wears down VT front 7. Short-Intermediate passing game prevents turnovers and keeps VT out of range. Cincinnati: W, Still a trap game, but Gunner Kiel or not, they have 1 receiver I'm actually scared of (who I actually was juked out by repeatedly in high school weirdly enough). Again, the depth gets us a win, even though this is probably pretty ugly and hard to watch like VT. at Maryland: W, Welcome to the Big 10 bitch. Rutgers: W, In which JT Barrett accumulates the yardage necessary to be the Big 10 freshman of the year while the RBs have a competition over who can juke Rutgers' lovely defense the hardest. Illinois: W, Tim Beckman is still a sad sad man. at Sparty: Toss-up, Really, until I see MSU has in fact reloaded on defense instead of just had 1 good year, I still don't think think we lose this, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt for the moment since Narduzzi is a loving wizard. I do think the reps JT gets from VT help a lot here and give him some needed experience against a good secondary, but I'm mostly concerned about the O-line holding up here. at Minnesota: W, No depth or speed on defense for Minnesota seems bad to me. Indiana: W, I can see the offense dropping 70 here just because Urban really really did not enjoy how close this was last time. Michigan: W, if this were in Ann Arbor, I might call it a toss-up. True frosh LT with a bunch of guys who were the world line in football last year against the best pass rush in football? Maybe they get a bit better, but that's a tall order on the road with the level of noise this game will have. Funchess and Butt aren't enough to keep us from stacking 8 guys in the box and making this a long day. Potential Big 10 Championship: W, the west sucks this year. Best Case: 12-1, 13-1 with Barrett living up to his ranking and stepping up as the next hot new redshirt freshmen that keep popping up (see, Winston, Mariota, Manziel, etc) and the defense stepping up only to get curbstomped by one of FSU/Whoever wins the Pac-12 or SEC in the semis or final. Worst Case: 10-3 with Barrett and Jones battling over QB all year and a surprise loss somewhere on top of losing both toss ups. Still good enough for like the Capital One or Alamo Bowl where we beat the living hell out of someone and create mass hype for next year. Likely Case: 11-1 beating VT and losing to Sparty and falling short of the Big 10 championship game. This gets us into one of the BCS bowls under the purview of the committee but not the playoffs where we probably play like Clemson and try for revenge in a game where literally all of the points will be scored. Really, I don't see why the sky is suddenly following because Braxton went down though. Barrett will never be the runner he is, but he doesn't have to be with the talent on offense, and his passing in all likelihood will be the same or potentially even better than Braxton by virtue of his accuracy. We were winning games with Kenny Guiton last year on a team that was inferior to this one by a good margin, and the offense still ran really loving well, and that's with a dude who didn't even have Barrett's tools. TheGreyGhost fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Aug 27, 2014 |
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Aug 27, 2014 05:10
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DJExile posted:I'll play a little devil's advocate here. OSU isn't going to miss Braxton's passing because it was mediocre on a good day. Dude can run like all hell and had a pretty strong arm, but not a particularly accurate one. OSU is probably always going to have a solid O-line and Urban has some very good receivers on the team now. From what I know this backup QB is much better as a thrower. This was pretty much my point. I admit I'm a shameless homer, but that's sort of the point of the thread, and my worst case was also predicated on A. the backup QB struggling, B. the defense still being poo poo, C. The O-line never coming together, and D. the Linebackers failing to play up to expectations. Braxton went down, but we literally have guys in our third string skill players on offense that would be starting at like 10 of the 14 Big 10 schools right now. Based on the knowledge to come out since I wrote the initial post, I feel far more confident that the failure cascade that it would take to bring us to single digit wins got way less likely.
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Aug 28, 2014 05:19
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quote:QB: Obviously with Braxton out, JT Barrett is now the guy. He's a way more accurate passer who thrives from the short-intermediate passes that Urban used more for the Florida offense than now, so the passing game will likely shift more towards that. He can run too, albeit not at Braxton's caliber. Biggest concern is his arm strength on the deep ball, but we can adjust the offense for that. This isn't like 3 years ago when Braxton was a freshman. We have the best set of skill players at OSU in close to a decade, and the offense is still going to put up some absurd numbers. Also, Barrett has literally been taking first-team snaps since spring, and he's been in the program for a year now. He has over 300 snaps taken before the injury even happened. We were winning games last year with Kenny Guiton having a small fraction of that and even less physical ability than JT. Player-wise, I was pretty accurate. Mike Thomas actually finally broke out at receiver, so that was a slight miss. The O-line has gotten good, and the D-line doesn't really miss Spence all that much. LBs are great, especially when Curtis isn't on the field, and this is the best secondary we've had in years. quote:at Navy: W, Our front 7 is too good to lose this game. Record was fairly accurate so far. Serious botch calling VT a lean W in retrospect, but I think we're somewhere between the best case and the likely case right now. Barrett has absolutely been the best redshirt freshman QB in America this year, and that's meant a great deal. Still aren't out of the playoff hunt.
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Nov 17, 2014 17:00
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