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USC/Ohio State Thoughts

Posted by Scipio Tex on September 11th, 2008 under Football

Here are some Ohio State and USC starting points if you want do some research. A number of Ohio State fans think Sweatervest is engaging in cloak-and-dagger counterintelligence with regards to Wells and that he’s just fine; the USC fans are surprised that people still, like, live in places like Ohio.

My three keys to the game:

QB Play

Mark Sanchez is already an upgrade over JD Booty. The next question is whether he can play at a Matt Leinart/Carson Palmer level. He throws a nice ball and he has the weapons on the edge. A lot of his effectiveness will be determined by a makeshift Trojan offensive line that Virginia lacked the athletes to challenge.

Todd Boeckman is an interception chucking machine that Tress doesn’t trust. So he is relegated to a dink and dunk offense where he boasts a pedestrian 6.6 yards per attempt average (he’s 30 of 45 for 297 yards). That’s after playing the Youngstown State Penguins and the Ohio Bobcats. Terrelle Pryor is a supreme athlete who could present major problems to the USC defense. In two years. With a healthy Beanie Wells in the backfield. With fast wide receivers on the edge. Sorry couch pyros. Beanie has bunions, Santonio Holmes plays for Pittsburgh, and it’s not 2010.

Trojan D vs. Ohio St O

This is the most crucial matchup of the game. Ohio State’s major problems will be on offense, not defense. Why? Ohio State has the athletes in their secondary to almost match up with USC and their traditional wolfsbane – the mobile QB – isn’t Sanchez. Similarly, the USC OL isn’t as solid as their outing against Virginia suggests. If the game gets out of hand to the tune of 45-10, it will be because Todd Boeckman is throwing pick 6s, Pryor is being thrown to the wolves, and the Trojan defense and special teams are setting the Trojan offense up with short fields.

Ohio State’s fundamental issue is the lack of a major threat at any of their skill positions. At WR, Robiskie and Hartline are complementary guys and Small is speedy but is constrained by the structure of the offense and Boeckman at QB. Beanie Wells is a baller, but if his toe is a no go, Ohio State is done before they started. Perhaps Sweatervest is engaging in some top notch gamesmanship. Sans Beanie as a running threat, the Buckeye play action game won’t garner respect and if they try to spread the Trojans out with their small ball passing offense they’re matching up their skill athletes against arguably the best back 7 in college football. With Boeckman making the decisions. That fact, sportsfans, offers Buckeye offensive prospects as bleak as an Ohio industrial town.

USC Skill Position Depth

At RB you have Gable (running purist), Johnson (power guy), McKnight (multipurpose), Bradford (power guy #2). At WR, Damian Williams is developing into a proven quantity, Patrick Turner is a great red zone threat, Vidal Hazelton is not stinking as he did all of last year, and Ronald Johnson has the most raw talent of all of them. That’s a lot of fresh bodies and a lot of ways to tinker with lineups, matchups, and probe weaknesses.

I see USC covering the 10.5 points readily. Call it 31-13, Trojans. If you’re someone who is into retrospective trends, USC is 6-1 ATS in their last seven games coming off of a bye week

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25 Responses

  1. Facebook User said:

    September 11th, 2008 at 3:45 pm

    What about Aaron Corp?

  2. Big Fat Liar said:

    September 11th, 2008 at 5:22 pm

    My favorite part of this page was Scip’s writing.

  3. Spider said:

    September 12th, 2008 at 5:39 am

    My favorite part of this page was Scip’s writing.

    Second that. Pull that girl’s tuque down over her face.

  4. Vasherized said:

    September 12th, 2008 at 7:00 am

    Patrick Turner is rocking a mean beard these days. Sort of a reverse Afro.

    But that’s nothing compared to Aaron Corp’s neck band. The fashionistas in LA have officially been put on notice.

  5. Vasherized said:

    September 12th, 2008 at 7:02 am

    Hard Corp

  6. WhoooTex said:

    September 12th, 2008 at 9:08 am

    “Todd Boeckman is an interception chucking machine that Tress doesn’t trust. So he is relegated to a dink and dunk offense where he boasts a pedestrian 6.6 yards per attempt average (he’s 30 of 45 for 297 yards).”

    Actually that’s not exactly true. Well, I mean, the numbers are true but the conclusion isn’t– Ohio State took several shots down the field against Ohio only to see balls ricochet off the hands of their receivers. They couldn’t catch shit last Saturday, the drops were unbelievable. Against Youngstown State, they played things pretty conservatively.

    The deep ball was *generally* part of their regular gameplan last year until they get far enough ahead that it’s unnecessary or in inclement weather (Michigan, last year). Boeckman averaged jusssst under 8th in yards per attempt last year, which ranked him 17th nationally.

    The interception thing– he hasn’t thrown one this year, thanks mostly to the competition I suppose. He did throw too many last year, but 14 INTs against 25 TDs and a 148.95 passer rating (13th nationally) isn’t exactly George Blanda or anything.

    Boeckman’s a decent-to-good QB, the kind you expect to find playing for a top-tier BCS program when they don’t have a true superstar ready at the position.

    I think Wells will play Saturday, and to take some pressure off of him, I think Tressel will try to take some shots down the field to keep SC from loading up in the box. It will come down to execution– if Ohio State hits on enough deep passes, Wells might be able to be effective in a limited amount of playing time.

    But I’ve been saying all week this is going to be a 47-17 Asplundhing for USC, so I guess I’m sticking with that. SC wins, big.

  7. WhoooTex said:

    September 12th, 2008 at 9:09 am

    Please forgive the 1st sentence of my 3rd paragraph above and its floating verb tense and redundant redundancy.

  8. Scipio Tex said:

    September 12th, 2008 at 9:51 am

    Whoo:

    First, thanks for your response. I don’t agree that Boeckman is a OK QB.

    Boeckman threw 14 ints in 299 attempts. That’s a 4.7% interception rate per attempt. That’s a disgraceful statistic.

    2 touchdowns and 6 interceptions in his last three games against Illinois, Michigan, and LSU. That’s real competition and that’s a reasonable measure of what he’ll do against USC.

  9. WhoooTex said:

    September 12th, 2008 at 10:27 am

    Agree to disagree. He clearly threw too many INTs last year, and as you say he did not play well in his last three games. Aside from Penn State and Wisconsin, those are the three games that give us the best glimpse as to what Boeckman might look like this weekend (obviously especially LSU).

    Boeckman was excellent against Penn State and passable against Wisconsin. So when you adjust for degree of difficulty, I grant that it’s normal to doubt the overall body of work which statistically speaking was quite good.

    I still think, having seen him play nine or ten times now, that he’s OK. Other than Penn State, it’s not likely he will win a game for OSU, and as I said in my last post, I think that Wells’ health will force Tressel to try to make Boeckman do more than he would normally be asked.

    I think that is a formula for disaster and that’s why I think SC wins by 4 TDs.

  10. Hippie Killer said:

    September 12th, 2008 at 11:52 am

    There is not a damn thing wrong with that girl.

  11. Scipio Tex said:

    September 12th, 2008 at 12:54 pm

    Whoo:

    Truthfully, we’re just manufacturing disagreement for our amusement. You have USC winning more convincingly than me so we’re probably not that far apart on our opinions of Boeckman.

  12. coach Callahan said:

    September 12th, 2008 at 1:10 pm

    one of you is saying he’s an interception chucking machine and the other one is saying when he is forced to carry more of the offense against better competition he is an interception chucking machine. I can see the conflict.

  13. Facebook User said:

    September 12th, 2008 at 1:37 pm

    He’s no Aaron Corp.

  14. Big Fat Liar said:

    September 12th, 2008 at 2:35 pm

    “There is not a damn thing wrong with that girl.”

    I find her difficult to look at.

  15. Scipio Tex said:

    September 12th, 2008 at 5:06 pm

    Ohio State might want to consider a yarmulke because they’ll have no Beanie.

  16. BRAGGonUT said:

    September 12th, 2008 at 5:29 pm

    Herbie thinks it might all be subterfuge.

  17. Facebook User said:

    September 12th, 2008 at 5:40 pm

  18. BRAGGonUT said:

    September 12th, 2008 at 6:35 pm

    I prefer this one, SR.

  19. Scipio Tex said:

    September 13th, 2008 at 6:20 pm

    Boeckman is an interception chucking machine. He blows. They have a dink and dunk offense. 14 of 21 for 84 yards and 2 ints, one for a pick 6.

  20. Ransom Stoddard said:

    September 14th, 2008 at 5:04 am

    USC didn’t decide to take two years off after the Reggie Bush era like Mack and Company did. Their roster is full of 5 star players who can PLAY. Ours is full of guys that Dave Campbell thought might be good after their sophmore year.

  21. NateHeupel said:

    September 14th, 2008 at 6:02 am

    I can’t freaking believe I’m going to say this, but…

    “USC didn’t decide to take two years off after the Reggie Bush era like Mack and Company did. Their roster is full of 5 star players who can PLAY. Ours is full of guys that Dave Campbell thought might be good after their sophmore year.”

    This might come off as a tinfoil hat alert, but I seriously believe USC hasn’t been playing by the rules since Carroll got there. That’s not to say I 100% support the NCAA recruiting rules, because amateurism is crap and has been for some time. The bottom line is that Texas plays by the rules. Mack Brown strikes me as the kind of guy who would insist on that. Pete Carroll does not. Pete strikes me as the kind of guy who has his own strict moral code, but any rules that don’t comport with his code are extraneous and disposable if victory is on the line.

  22. WhoooTex said:

    September 14th, 2008 at 6:35 am

    I take back every positive thing I ever thought about Todd Boeckman. He is an abomination to the quarterbacking profession and should be assassinated.

  23. BrickHorn said:

    September 14th, 2008 at 7:39 am

    That game went almost exactly as I thought it would, except that USC’s domination was delayed by roughly a quarter. Still, I expected the Trojans to kick the shit out of tOSU and they certainly did. The Buckeyes just aren’t among the elite teams this season.

  24. HornbyMarriage said:

    September 15th, 2008 at 5:37 am

    “The bottom line is that Texas plays by the rules. Mack Brown strikes me as the kind of guy who would insist on that.”

    Yes! Not to mention, when Mack looks lovingly in to Greg Davis’ eyes and says “we’ll be together to the end” regardless of extraneous crap like the facts on the ground, he really means it.

  25. Barking Carnival — Blog — USC vs Ohio State said:

    September 11th, 2009 at 4:27 pm

    [...] year I looked at the Ohio State-USC game and pretty much nailed what was going to happen. Oh, big deal you say. But bring yourself back to [...]

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