Ohio State has a game tonight, although I've been doing my best to put that fact out of my mind for the last several days. I've decided to go with the theory that 2007 was the year for finishing second for my teams (OSU football, OSU basketball, Indians, Cavs ) and the calendar has now changed all that. I was confident last year, and predicted a double digit win for the Bucks. 'Nuff said about that. At least most of the experts were wrong along with me.
This year I think the Buckeyes have the superior team, but since they're playing the game in LSU's backyard, the Superdome crowd factor is the first of what I think are three keys to the game for Ohio State.
1) If it's easy to tell early in the game that the Buckeye fans are out in numbers (and in volume) in the crowd, and the home field advantage for LSU is minimized somewhat, it will be a huge lift for the Bucks.
2) OSU's fortunes will ride on the performance of QB Todd Boeckman. He was erratic in the last couple of games of the regular season, and the hope is that he has benefited from a month of intense mentoring from one of the best quarterback coaches in the college game, Jim Tressel. Chris Wells will surely break one or two long runs as the huge OSU line wears down the LSU front over the course of the game, so even if the Tigers sell out to stop the run, Beanie will eventually get his yards. But Boeckman's ability to throw the ball well in the early part of the game is crucial to a positive start and some confidence for him and for the Buckeyes.
3) Jim Tressel and defensive coordinator Jim Heacock must have a Plan B this time around. Last year, Tressel stubbornly stuck with his flawed offensive game plan, as Florida defensive ends, safeties and linebackers crashed off the corners all night long and harassed Troy Smith into a horrible performance. He had a large part of his offensive plan built around creative uses of Ted Ginn Jr., who was out for the game after the opening kickoff. On defense, Heacock forgot that pressure on the quarterback is the key to disrupting an offense, and dropped seven or eight men into zone coverages and got chewed up by Leak's passing and the gifted group of Gator WR's.
All this was evident by the end of the first quarter, but not even with the Bucks down 10 at the half did Tressel see any need to change tactics. And never once since the game was over (to my knowledge) has Tressel acknowledged that he was seriously out-coached and out-prepared by his Florida counterparts. One hopes that the Debacle in the Desert has been tormenting him like it has tormented Buckeye fans for a year now, and that he has prepared them differently this time around.
By that I mean that last year's team, by all accounts from people who were with the team before the game, was ridiculously overconfident, and the TD on the opening kickoff mad matters even worse. Tressel had allowed the team's fans to mingle and party with the players in Glendale in the days leading up to the game. Florida largely isolated their players from those influences. The Buckeyes hadn't lost a game. They came in sporting the Heisman Trophy winner and had been No. 1 wire to wire, so when they got socked in the mouth by Florida, they were rattled, and never recovered.
But back to 2008. This time we're the underdogs, and the team nobody expects to win. People close to the program who have observed the December practices say the team is hungry and the intensity level at practice has been very high. Something tells me that this time around the Buckeyes will show that they want it a little more than the Tigers do. I think both OSU lines will eventually come to dominate the game, and the superior running game and the overall superiority of the defense of the Buckeyes will be enough to win the second national championship of the Tressel era. I look for a game under 45 total points, with the Bucks on top about 26-17.
The wild card in the whole picture is the 50-day wait between Michigan Week and the BCS game for Ohio State, a full two weeks more inactivity than LSU has had. It's impossible to tell in advance what kind of effect that will have. The OSU team that showed up in Glendale last year was certainly not the same group that went 12-0 between September and November. And getting his team to come out sharp from the opening kickoff of this year's game may be Tressel's biggest challenge.
Oh yeah, and remembering that the game isn't over after the opening kickoff will be important too.
UPDATE 1/7: Question for bloggers...Ever have a post you just want to take down about 24 hours after you post it?
Posted by dan at January 7, 2008 1:22 AM