Jeff at The BBC
Pryor to continue improvement – He showed drastic improvement from the USC game to the Toledo game, and that pattern needs to continue. I only saw four plays last week that I said “what are you THINKING”….cut that to two, and I’m happy.
Two-parter – Subtitled “Fix the reasons we lost in 2007”
Part One – Do NOT allow Illinois to convert on 3rd-and-long – In 2007, on the Illini final drive, we were completely unable to stop the rushing attack. Take a look;
| Time left | Situation | Play |
| 6:53 | 3rd and 1 | Mendenhall no gain |
| 6:30 | 4th and 1 | Williams 2-yards |
| 5:00 | 3rd and 7 | Williams 12-yards |
| 3:38 | 3rd and 10 | Williams 12-yards |
| 2:19 | 3rd and 2 | Williams 3-yards |
By the way, we did manage to stop them on their final 3rd down play…when they kneeled on the ball to end the game.
Part Two – Competent officiating, please! Anybody wanna revisit this one???
Had the refs examined this one for even a split second, we get the ball on the 20 after that play, and Illinois doesn’t score their first TD.
MaliBuckeye
Juice on his back– He’s a good QB, but he gets out of rhythm pretty easily. With our front four, we should be able to contain him and make him jumpy. It will also give us a read on how well we’ll do against more mobile folks we may see later in the season.
More of the same- TP had a solid game last week and a good game against the Illini last year. More, please.
No false starts- Yeah.
Return of Gidorah, squared- Big numbers from Boom/Zoom/Whatever nickname Hall has, as well as Posey/Sanzo/Carter.***
Jim
Establish the run game – and I will put that on here until we do. While we did have over 200 yards rushing last week, we never really dominated on the ground, with most of the yards coming on Pryor scrambles. None of our backs established that they are a threat to run the ball consistently. This week, I want one of our backs (any one will do) to get into a rhythm and to consistently get solid yards when the ball is in their hands. I won’t be putting a number on what I want to see, but I think it will be pretty obvious if it happens. This is not all on the backs, however, because…
Our line needs to move people off the ball – While there were many positives to be taken away from last weeks game, the fact that the line didn’t dominate one of the worst defenses they will face all season is one negative that was pretty glaring. This week we face an Illinois defense that just lost Martez Wilson (their best defender) for the year. Looking at the rest of their roster on defense, I don’t see any “stars” that the Buckeyes have to worry about. I really want to see improvement from the offensive line this week and I think that is going to be one of the biggest keys for the rest of the season. As an extra incentive for the line to do well, I will be re-evaluating them next week in my ongoing look at the various position groups.
Limit making dumb decisions, Pryor – I mentioned that offensive line improvement is a major key to improvement for the rest of the year; this is the other one. With the way our defense has been performing, as long as Pryor can limit the dumb decisions and eliminate turnovers, our team will win every game on the schedule for the rest of the year. Last week I put some pretty unrealistic numbers up (75% completions) for what I wanted to see out of Pryor, this week I will make my test of improvement much easier to pass. I want to see Pryor make less than 3 stupid decisions and a maximum one turnover. If we continue to see some of the mistakes that Pryor made last week with the ball, we may be in trouble in Happy Valley.
Make Juice Williams one dimensional – In the game that shall not be mentioned from 2007, Illinois had their way on the ground and the Buckeye defense was absolutely unable to stop them. This year Ohio State needs to stop the run game at all costs, and I think we will. TheOzone.net has had some nice articles about how the ’07 game is still on the players minds and that stopping the run and Juice Williams in particular will be a focus. When the Buckeyes stop the Illini ground attack, Juice will be forced to show what a terrible passer he is, turnovers will ensue, and sweet, sweet revenge will be at hand.
Eric
Juice Williams accounts for less than 200 yards of offense – If we can do this, especially if he accounts for less than 50 on the ground, this game is in the bag. We all know Juice is the beginning and end of the Illini offense, after all.
At least 4 sacks from our D-Line – We all know they’re capable of it. The only reason they didn’t record 10 against Opelt was because he kept throwing the ball every time a Buckeye defender even sniffed the backfield. Juice Williams should be much more confident in himself, and therefore and much more inviting target.
The Broken Record: Continue to throw to the TE’s and RB’s – With our running game so suspect of late, this becomes even more important. The defense has to be worried about those RBs, and the only way that happens right now is if they’re a receiving threat.
Bonus: The Game – I’ll be celebrating Durga Puja (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durga_Puja) with my girlfriend and several friends this weekend. It would be nice to catch the game in the middle of it!
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*** – Jeff hereby declares new nicknames – Boom/Zoom/Doom for the RBs, and “Triple-D” for the wideouts (Dane, Devier, and Duron)
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