Buckeye Battle Cry stops by Zombie Nation

Ok folks, Jeff from the Buckeye Battle Cry is here with some fantastic–and lengthy–answers to a few questions I threw to him. I also answered a few of his questions. Check that out at the BBC. It's great when the Big Ten bloggers can reach across party lines and unite the Big Ten conference nation. This is a time when partisan bickering will only harm our great conference, when our sworn enemies in the SEC are not only out to destroy the Big Ten, but the college football world. This is our time to unite against the real enemies... wait, what the hell am I saying? I hate the Buckeyes! Enjoy.

1. Ohio State's gotten a lot of criticism for it's performance in the "Big Games," like the BCS title game and the trip to USC. How much of that is legitimate, and how much is just bull?

BBC: 50/50. The Buckeyes have had three massive failures on the big stage, and there is plenty of blame to go around. I do have my ways of white-washing it all, though. If I may;

Florida, 2007 - Play #1 of the entire day changes everything. Ted Ginn breaks his foot and cuts a big part of our offensive scheme out. The Gators begin keying on Gonzalez and force us to change everything dramatically. We did a horrible job of adjusting, and before we knew what hit us, we were down 20 points at halftime. I think that injury set us back deep in our mindset, and we never recovered.

LSU, 2008 - Straight up, we got beat. The Tigers were just the better team. But in that game, LSU was favored to get to the National Championship from day one, and Ohio State was supposed to be experiencing a "rebuilding year". To be 11-1 was a shock to all of us, but on that day, we just got beat by a better team.

USC, 2008 - Beanie's injury killed us. I don't know what the outcome of that game would have been with Beanie in the lineup, but the USC defense only had to force Boeckman into making mistakes (which he did). Beanie would have taken a LOT of pressure off the QB, and certainly the game would have been a LOT closer. By halftime, we were trailing 21-3 (thanks to a Boeckman pick-six). I'm thinking it would have been 14-14 with Wells in there, and the second half would not have been an afterthought. Still, we stunk on ice.

But the "Buckeyes suck in big games" drama is mostly fed by selective memory. The people who say that about us tend to forget that in 2006, the Buckeyes beat the #2 team in the country....twice. Week 2, we manhandled #2 Texas 24-7 on the Longhorns own field, and in Week 12, we won what most people called "the real National Championship", besting #2 Michigan 42-39. Tell me that wasn't a great, great game.

Fact is, you put us on a big stage with a healthy lineup, and I'll take my chances with the Buckeyes any day.

2. What's the mood of your readers/the OSU fans, going into this game as a Vegas underdog?

BBC: I can't presume to speak for my readers. I know that they are mostly rabid, bleeding-scarlet supporters, and I would assume they'd laugh off an underdog-at-home situation, but I don't know for sure. As for myself, I'm surprised that a Top-10 team isn't favored at home.

But I'm not shocked.

Except for an average performance against Purdue and an embarrassing first half against Michigan, Penn State has been unstoppable. They've buried teams that were supposed to give them their toughest challenges (Illinois and Wisconsin). Meanwhile, the oddsmakers still recall the USC game. I think the dismantling of Michigan State made this a closer game in Vegas. I have a suspicion that the point-spread was going to be 7 or 8 until that 45-7 game in East Lansing.

3. If there's one battle (like WRs vs. CBs) that Ohio State absolutely has to win, what is it? How and Why?

BBC: Tressel vs. Paterno. Both coaches have an excruciating tendency to go conservative in the Ohio State/Penn State game. The coach who takes more chances and mixes up the playbook more frequently will be victorious on Saturday, even if the uncommon plays are not successful. If Tressel uses every three plays to run Beanie off-tackle twice and Pryor around end once, it'll work for the first quarter. After that, defensive adjustments will end up forcing us to go 3-and-out a LOT. But if we open it up more....throw it 20+ yards downfield, quick-hitters, using the tight end more....the Penn State defense will not be able to focus on a smaller playbook and Ohio State will have more success.

Feels strange to say it, but it's going to come down to which one of the Big Ten's best coaches has the better gameplan.

4. Has Terrelle Pryor looked as good as everyone made him out to be? Would you like to see Todd Boeckman play at all?

BBC: To listen to Ohio State fans, you would swear that Pryor could escape a blitz, turn the corner, race up the sidelines for a TD, go into the stands, cure a man of his leprosy, feed section 7A with a small basket of bread and fish, then reverse the earth's axis to go back in time and prevent Lois Lane from being crushed by that car.

True, Terrelle Pryor (known as "LeBron in Cleats" around the Buckeye blogs) has been better than I expected him to be in his true freshman season. But I don't believe it's fair to fully assess his capability yet. He's still learning the game at this level, and the coaching staff has kept him from being TOO involved in the passing game. Take a look at the number of passes he's thrown in each of his 5 starts in 2008....16, 13, 19, 14, and 11. Against Michigan State, Ohio State had 63 plays on offense, and 52 of them were running plays. With the coaches sending in a heavy diet of ground plays, we can't get a complete grasp of what LBiC's full abilities are.

Plus, he's got Beanie Wells on the field, so we haven't had the need to rest our chances on Pryor's shoulders yet. Beanie's been the workhorse while Pryor learns, thankfully.

Is Pryor a good player? Yes, and he has the chance to get even better each week.
Is he a future Heisman candidate? I'm not ready to say that yet, but if he continues to learn and get better....he will be.

As for Boeckman.....no. I don't want to see him play. Pryor is on schedule and Boeckman's tendency to get "happy feet" when under pressure has led to one too many huge mistakes. I would have hoped that a 11th-year senior could handle a linebacker blitz, but Boeckman never seemed to get better at handling such a situation. Keep him on the bench, please.

5. What aspect of Penn State has impressed you the most so far this season? What's the least impressive?

BBC: Most impressive - Clark's leadership. Penn State has a bevy of talent on the field, and yet there hasn't been any public in-fighting over who should get the bulk of the load. That boils down to Clark's leadership. On any given day, a number of Lions could be the hero. Granted, Royster and Clark have been the top beneficiaries of the hero tag, but nobody gets left out in the offense. And when you consider the fact that Clark didn't even have the starting job secured until the season began, well that's doubly impressive.

Least impressive - Running up the score. PSU entered the 4th quarter against Wisconsin with a 34-point lead, and had 16 offensive plays in the final quarter. 9 rushes and 7 passes. I'm of the mind-frame that you don't pass the ball late in the game when the winner is clearly decided. Also, with 2 minutes to go against Michigan, you had an 80-yard TD pass? I didn't see it, so maybe you threw a dump-off behind the line and every Michigan player fell down (which would surprise exactly nobody), but I'm wondering if it was unnecessary and possibly unsportsmanlike.

6. Any other feelings or thoughts about the game or the season so far you need to get out?

BBC: Oh, yeah. Here it comes. This is the red meat that your fanbase wants to see from a Buckeye. OK, deep breath.

Your cupcake schedule ends on Saturday night, and so do your chances at anything worthwhile for the end of Old Man's career. The best team you've faced until now has three losses (two, if you don't count the game Oregon State lost to Stanford. Penn State neglects to mention that one, probably because the defense was too high to watch the game on ESPN). Last time JoePa was in Columbus, he had to run to the locker room in the middle of a play, and he came out with different pants on. Expect more than one coach to shit himself this weekend.

By Sunday night, the Nittany Lions can go back to gang-stomping students and pretending to be Snoop Dogg's personal dealer. And their fans can go back to being the classless, bottle-chucking, piss-throwing morons that they are accustomed to being. ESPN will camp out on your campus, and occasionally turn on a camera, always managing to catch a student-athlete violating at least three federal laws each time.

And then Jay Paterno will be your 2009 Head Coach. Welcome to Happy Fucking Valley.

There. Think that fired up the fans of Zombie Nation?

7. Winner?

BBC: Come on, Mike....you really wanna ask me, the sole propietor of The Buckeye Battle Cry, who's gonna win the game? Obviously, I believe the Buckeyes will continue their home dominance of the Lions. But you wanna know who the REAL winner will be come Sunday morning?

The Big Ten Conference.

Having an epic battle between two Big Ten greats will only do the conference good. The south can do whatever the hell they want while ignoring the fact that all the teams in the SEC (except Florida) have struggled with weak opponents (Bama barely beating Ole Miss, Georgia nearly losing to South Carolina, Tennessee and Vandy). But the rest of country will have to recognize that the B10 remains in the spotlight no matter how hard they wish us into the cornfield.

Best of luck, Lions. Should you win Saturday night, do us proud in the National Championship game. Because if you do win, I'm confident you'll get to the promised land.

Ed-Tomorrow, the PSU/OSU game preview.