the view from 26c...
1. our drum major failing to negotiate the bottom of his ramp entrance pregame. felt awful for him. yeah it was not a good look.
2. b2 bomber from wright-patt made a surprise flyover during the national anthem that really juiced the crowd. per usual, the flight crew landed nearby (I'm guessing rickenbacker) then gets an escort back to the stadium to be intro'd. to my surprise, one of them (lt. steven fabrizio) opens up his flight shirt to reveal a buckeye t-shirt. steve's dad and I went to tosu together, were at j-school and worked at the campus radio station, and later worked together as reporters here at channel 6 (he's now a news director down in louisville). what a cool moment.
3. wish the game had had more cool moments. we had 600+ yds in total offense yet not only lost, but only put up 28 points. that has to be a first. uo's defense was missing 2 starters (not 5, though they had a couple guys go down in the 4th qtr, forcing their te to play de, getting their only sack of the game) but really stuffed our run game in the 1st half and did well enough at the end of the game to seal the win.
4. stroud's numbers were gaudy; completed 67% of his passes, gaining 484 yds and 3 td's, and yet still was missing passes high, tending to lock in on his targets, not seeing a couple opportunities for big gains tucking the ball in and running, in other words, a kid starting his 2nd game.
5. as leaky as our d was... and it was leaky... they came up w/2 huge stops in the 4th qtr opening the door for the offense to tie up the game. I was worried about stroud being in that kind of situation w/so little experience. on those 2 possessions, c.j. went 2-4 for 12 yds and no 1st downs on the 1st, a sack/1-3 for 11 yds and a pick on the 2nd. game over.
6. stroud was passing because we weren't running, or day didn't trust the run game enough. 31 att/128 yds... pretty pedestrian numbers. I think we only had 3 gash runs of 10+ yds. both williams and henderson have great talent/potential, but often young backs think they can make 2 or 3 moves on a carry like they could in hs. you can't get away w/that on this level... you have to plant on your 1st move and run to daylight. they'll learn.
7. we didn't control los in the rush game but we did keep c.j. pretty clean in the pocket... just 1 sack (though it came on the next to last possession at a bad time).
8. we had not 1, not 2, but 3 wr's go 100+ yds. smith-njigba (145/2 td's, his best game), olave (126) and wilson (117, 1 td) combined for 27 catches, 389 yds. and we lost. the o bears as much weight for this loss as the d.
9. ryan day's record at tosu now 'drops' to 23-1. lmao. he's done alright. that said, I thought he got away from trusting the run game a little early, and he went for it on 4th down a lot , often when we could have gotten 3; on our first possession (4th and about 7 from around the 30-failed), near the end of the 2nd qtr (4th and 2 or 3 from the uo 40, and williams got stuffed), again near the end of the 3rd (4th and 2 inside the uo 10, instead of a run stroud missed olave in the end zone, mostly imho because a db was holding onto his jersey), early in the 4th (stroud hit wilson I think on a crossing route that set up the td to make it 28-21), later in the 4th inside the uo 20 (that pass was to smith-njigba for a td to make it 35-28 w/about 8:00 left). I know part of it was how the d was playing, but I wonder if we'd gotten 1 or 2 fg's earlier in the game the effect it might have had.
9. proctor's injury happened right in front of us in the 2nd qtr and it looked bad, like a compound leg break (haven't heard anything official). hate to think of this d w/o him but highly doubt he'll return this year.
10. his replacement, bryson shaw, struggled. he took a horrible angle on verdell's long td run up the middle in uo's 1st possession of the 2nd half that made it 21-7, and he got fooled badly on play action, leaving their te wide open for what turned out to be the winning td early in the 4th.
11. combs will get heat this week, and that's the deal for coaches in columbus. he's stayed with the 4-2-5 scheme, dropping hickman from safety to a rover. I thought it didn't perform well vs minnesota but credited p.j. fleck for using 6 and sometimes 7 o-linemen. oregon didn't do that today, but still ran for 269 on just 38 carries. even though tosu had over 100 more total yards, the ducks were in control nearly the entire game.
12. I thought our d-line would be solid but like last week they got pushed on their heels in the run game and couldn't get up field to pressure their qb nearly enough (just 1 sack that I recall). that a big step back from the past years. that, in turn, puts pressure on our all rookie lb corps. I thought the usc transfer would see the field today (he's not been held out of practice while awaiting his approval) but I don't remember seeing him play. we're at a point where we need to see if he can help.
13. our db's actually played pretty well today I thought in coverage today. the biggest issue imho was that we weren't unpredictable on d (no blitzing that I remember at all), we didn't get off the field enough until the 4th qtr (uo was 8-16 on 3rd down conversions) and MY GOD CAN WE LEARN TO DEFEND THE WEAK/SHORT SIDE OF THE FIELD!!! uo ran options, they ran counters, they ran sweeps, and constantly had the buckeye defense outnumbered for key gains and 3 of their td's. watching video this week will be painful.
14. no surprise that the wins don't mean as much if the losses don't hurt. you don't fire combs after 2 games, but you do look at how to put our talent in the best position to make plays. tulsa comes in next week, off a near upset of oklahoma state.
15. I'm hoping I'll be able to witness a home win over a quality ooc opponent before I join the roll up yonder.
o... h...