Eh? A Game? Last Night? Are You Sure?

In case you haven't yet heard, Troy Smith and Ted Ginn, Jr. are BFF. Troy Smith had some kind of hard luck life and Ted Ginn, Sr. helped raise Troy Smith. One of Ohio State's linebackers was sired by Animal (or Hawk, it doesn't matter). Troy Smith won the Heisman. Troy Smith is Mr. Everything (I thought that was Calvin Johnson?). And whatever other kind of garbage human interest story the media poured upon us relentlessly concerning tOSU players. I nearly died of dehydration from all the vomitting. At least we didn't have to hear about Tom Zbikowski and his boxing.

Then, those magical fascinating Buckeyes faced some inferior, uninteresting team from some place as undesireable as a Swamp. Just a bump in the road to immortality, right? Not exactly.

Ted Ginn, Jr., Ohio State's most dangerous receiver, missed 90% of the game due to some mysterious injury, if by "mysterious injury" you mean "crippling embarrassment caused by wearing a condom as a hat". Don't get me wrong, those doo-rags or whatever aren't that bad, but his was white, translucent, rolled down, and ribbed for her pleasure.

Troy Smith was simply unable to adjust to an actual pass rush. Apparently no one told him the Big 10's rule requiring D-lineman to count to 3-mississippi before rushing the quarterback didn't apply in the National Championship Game.


Someone also forgot to tell Ohio State that when you play Tampa 2 Zone or a NFL style Cover 2 Zone, the middle linebacker has to stay somewhere in the 10-15 yard range for at least a few seconds. My understanding of that D, which is essentially what tOSU played for most of the game, is that in theory, you allow receivers to run underneath and make catches, but punish them with insane hits, either dislodging the ball or making the receiver think twice next time he comes across the middle. Unfortunately, the linebackers were so deep, Leak merely completed 6-15 yards passes at will. Even when the backers and safeties reached the receiver after the catch, I only recall one legitimate tackle. Time and time again, a Florida receiver would catch the ball a few yards short of the first down and get hit, but drag the tackler(s) a yard or two to convert the third down. It was like clockwork.


More generally, Florida was entirely too fast on defense and entirely too prepared on offense. Ohio State came out flat on both sides of the ball due, perhaps, to a 50-some day lay off. A larger difference I see, and one which concerns me with our beloved Mountaineers, is that when you play one tough opponent out of 12 during the regular season are you as prepared mentally as if you had played, say, 4-5 Top 25 teams?


Anyway, congrats to Florida and Urban Meyer, but considering Leak's odd fascination with the crystal football, I sure hope no one left him alone with it. "Hey! This didn't have a hole in it earlier!"

Note: Work in progress.