David Patterson to miss Saturday's game with a knee sprain. Kirk Barton is a go on the offensive line. Troy Smith appears to be ok and not any worse for his limping around a bit last Saturday. I think we will be ok! Don
Re: Holy Buckeye I can't take credit for that one. Musberger beat me to the punch during his call of the 02 Purdue game.....listen to the end of the clip. Sorry Stu! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fctlaDP716w I'm still amazed by the size of the ba!!s Tressel displayed with that call in that situation. Holy Buckeye, the stuff of scarlet and gray legend! Terry
8) Coach Smith has been under some pressure since he met Charlie. His season has now become a death march...
George, Yes, all that fretting for nothing. :lol: Game really turned out to be rather boring and I fell asleep in the final quarter. Nothing seems to effect Troy Smith. Ginn gets #6 punt return (60 yds) to close in on the NCAA record of 7 returns for TDs in college ranks. MSU not playing with much confidence and too many injuries. Don
Great Coaching jobs of all time?????????????? Not to disrespect Coach Tressel who has proven himself to be one of the best college coaches in the game today. But I'd hardly call this one of the greatest coaching jobs of all time. He had a veteran and explosive offense comming back, a young but experienced defense that just needed to get on the field. All he had to do is what he usually does, a great job.
You may have a greater appreciation for Tressel's efforts in replacing almost an entire defense when ND is faced with a similar task on offense next year.
Well we had this discussion over on InsideTexas before the Ohio State game and Ohio State posters said that while they did lose a lot of starters, that they guys that came into replace them have had a lot of playing time as backups and were experienced. So again, Kudo's for Tressel for doing his usual great job...but all time great I don't think so.
TOK, to lose 7 of 9 starters - decimating the LB and secondary corps - and then lead the country in scoring defense is truly remakable. Several of of those kids did play as back-ups but imho to say they were "experienced" is a bit of a stretch. Experience is a relative thing I guess.....I would go so far as to say that they are the least experienced defense in the Big 10 and likely in the top 25. They never had any experience playing as a unit....never had any experience with Lauranaitis playing in the middle making the defensive calls and its likely that those 4-6 kids in the secondary were never on the field at the same time, mush less communicating coverages real-time in game situations. That said, I don't know if this is the greatest coaching job of all-time, but it's a damn good one. I think we'll keep him. I agree with Krebsie....I think you won't truly appreciate the magnitude of the job until Wizard Weiss has to see if he can perform some similar magic with the Irish offense next year. If his offense leads the nation in scoring, I'll be a believer! :wink:
Terry, you touched upon a huge concern of mine, but because it is next year, I've shoved it to the back of my mind. I see these teams we have beaten this year at home, specifically PSU and Purdue, with very few seniors and loads of underclassmen on their rosters. We play UCLA this Saturday. According to JO'Co, their roster also is loaded with underclassmen. On the other hand, we will be losing somewhere between 15-20 seniors, will be fielding a very young team next year, and will be playing the aforementioned opponents at their stadiums. Not a pretty picture looking ahead. Regarding Tressel's coaching job, he has firmly established himself as one of the game's premier coaches, so I'm not surprised that he has filled the gaps on defense. The results speak for themselves.
Sid, By all accounts, Charley and his staff have recruited well and many have suggested that he has ramped up the level of athleticism across the board. That being the case, perhaps the drop off won't be as bad as you fear. As I see it, Charley is going to put a team on the field every week that can beat anybody on a given day. The future is a bright one....enjoy.
BuckeyeT one OSU poster on InsideTexas even put up a chart of the number of starts that the new guys have had and the minutes they had played. He was making the point that while they were new to being full time starters together that they were an experienced group of backups ready to make the move to full time starters. He was prophetic in that regard. Your defense is a strength of the team not weakness. That you had guys ready to go is one of the reasons that Tressel is one of the best coaches around, he recruits well, he developes talent well (not all of your guys are 5* guys) and he is a great gameday coach. And as I said I give Tressel kudos for being one of the top coaches in college football, in fact if I were to name the top coaches in college football I think two standout as clearly the best. That is Pete Carroll and Jim Tressel. The next tier would include Stoops (previously a top tier coach but I no longer consider him in that category), Brown, Meyer, Tubberville, Richt, Bellotti, Ferentz, Carr, Weis. Potentially Weis can be in that top tier, but right now he isn't. Terry
I don't think you can be in that 2nd Tier when you coach at Rutgers. He would be a Tier 2a along with Rich Rodrigue, Bobby Petrino, Paul Johnson, and some other guys. These are coaches getting it done big time at smaller programs with less demanding schedules, the assumption is that if and when they move up to a big time program playing a big time schedule they will suceed but it doesn't alway work out that way.