First the National Title Game. I thoght that Florida had a chance in this game all along. As the game approached I started wavering on my pick of OSU. When the game came around I wished that I had picked Florida because I thought that this was their game and that they would come out and win. There are different reasons for it but the one over riding aspect was that Florida was the more battle tested team and OSU was more a product of a joke of a conference and a down year in College Football.
The majority of OSU fans had grown tired of hearing about the superior athletic ability and speed of teams from the SEC. Most of them saw it is a running joke. It was not. It was the truth. Wrong or right the Big 10 has a reputation of being a big, plodding and physical conference. Alot of people watched the Outback and Capital One Bowls. The performances of the Big 10 teams in those two games gave everyone the impression that the notion of the SEC being faster was a joke. OSU fans then watched the Rose Bowl where Michigan was not on USC’s level. On that field there were two speeds SC’s and Big Blue’s. The Men of Troy were alot faster and alot more physical in every aspect of that game. That should have raised the red flag for Big 10 fans right there. But it did not. everyone seemed to attribute that performance to the trend and tradition of UM falling flat on their faces in bowl games. Particularly and speficicly the Rose Bowl. The next red flag was the Sugar Bowl. Notre Dame is not the most athletic team in the nation by any stretch of the imagination but LSU was, and is, right up there with anyone in the country and they completely blew the doors off the Irish. Most everyone in the great state of Ohio saw that as an indictment of Notre Dame and not an indication of how good the SEC was this year. The combination of these factors led alot of people to think that the Game in Glendale was going to be a corronation of OSU. Insted it turned into an indication of just how far the Big 10 has fallen since last year.
As for the acctual game there are several things that should be noted about the play calling and performance by both teams. Florida was about as well prepared as any team has been for any game this year. An exception could be made to say that Steve Spurrier’s game plan against Aburn in a Thursday Night Throwdown in September but I will not make that exception.
The worst thing that could have happened for OSU to start the game did in fact happen. Ginn returning that kick for a TD, with the aid of a hold on Reggie Nelson, was not good for the Bucks, and not because Roy Hall injured Ginn on the celebration. It gave the Bucks a false sense of security. It gave them the impression that this game was going to be easy and that they would walk all over the Gators. But the Gators are the best team from the best conference in the land and they would not go quietly into the Glendale Night. OSU seemed to relax. They seemed to lose focus and relent for a moment. UofF seized that moment, drove down the field in a drive indicative of just how easy this game would be for the Gators. When Malcom Jenkins peaked into the backfield and let Dallas Baker the Touchdown Maker out of his grasp the Gators had siezed a slight momentum edge. At the end of the next drive when Troy Smith tried to reprise his Houdini Act from the Penn State and Michigan State games and failed in the arms of Derrick Harvey. He found out that Florida defensive ends can be alot faster than Penn State linebackers. That first three and out for the OSU offense swung the momentum errivicably in the Gators favor.
Some of the stratigic thoughts of mine. Why didn’t the Buckeyes adjust their protection schemes for the offensive line. There was no slide protection. It was one on one. Tressell thought that his front five could handle their front four. Good in theory, as this is probably the best Buckeye offensive line since Tressell has been there. Bad in practice. Derrick Harvey and Jarvis Moss were just too fast and too quick of the ball of Kirk Barton and Alex Boone were not the awnser for those speed merchants on the outside. Joe Cohen had his way with the interior of the OSU line. Doug Datish was not strong enough to block him one on one. The Florida DT’s were simply rocks. It was Cohen who made the play on the 4th down attempt by OSU. He did not make the tackle but he pushed Datish back into the gaurd and bent him over backwards. But more on that play in a moment.
It was evident from the start that the gameplan for OSU was the same one that they employed against the Wolverines on the 18th of November. For various reason this did not work. In Football there are inherent sacrifices made with any style of offense. If you choose to run the option you usually give up the ability to pass with consistancy. If you choose to run the spread you usally sacrifice the running game. If you attempt to be balanced down the middle you risk having a clear cut offensive identity. These are the inherant sacrifices made when an offensive stratagey is decided upon. The spread, like any offense, is predicated on prtoection of the quarterback, in this case Troy Smith. By its very nature the spread is not designed to provide maximum protection to the QB. It is supposed to stretch the defense horizontaly and vertically. That is all well and good if your offensive line can give your quarter back enough time to get his pass off. Five should be able to block four it is a basic principal of any spread offense. If five can not block four you need to adjust. It became apparent to me after the second stalled OSU drive that the OSU 5 would not be able to block the UofF 4. For whatever reason Jim Tressell did not see it. He was still trying to dictate the terms of the game to the Gators. He did not realize that the terms of the game had already been eastablished, and they were terms that would not allow the Buckeyes a shot in this game. Jim Tressell who is usually money in big games was anything but on that night. He failed to adjust and continued to try and spread the field insted of bunkering down and protecting Smith at all costs. That failure to adjust, something that he has down remarkably well in his 5 years in Columbus, haunted him for the second time, the first being the original Texas game. By the time he did adjust and went to power packages and running the Football the game was lost.
Alot of credit has to be given to Urban Myer and Dan Mullen. Those two combined for a masterful game plan backed up with a performance that was nothing short of fantastic by Chris Leak. The only difference in attack between this game and the rest of the season is that M&M made a conserted effort to force feed Percy Harvin the ball. He had as many touches in the first half has he had in entire games for most of the season. The touches he got were basic. direct snaps, flares, reverses, and options but they worked. One play of absured simplicty was motioning Harvin to the trips side, throwing him the ball and letting him run. It is basicly and perrimiter power play. Take those three WR’s and have them stalk the men in front of them and trust that Percy can make one of them miss. It was never broken for big gains but it was 8 yards almost every time he touched the ball on that play. I said it before but it was painfully apparent, M&M dictated the terms of the game from the get go and Saint Tressell and his band of Merry Men had no awnser.
One further inaddiuicy of the Tressell plan for this game was the three man rush that was employed with no success for three quarters. The Florida offense is based haevily on timing. OSU knew that but it failed to do anything to disrupt the timing. Chris Leak is not good under pressure. Again OSU knew that and failed to adjust. For the majority of the game the Bucks used a three man front with a LB standing over the right gaurd. 95% of the time the LB droped into a zone and the three man OSU pass rush was engaged and neutrilized by the Gator front 5. There was no pressure on Leak. None. OSU came into the game knowing it had to disrupt the the Gators timing and knowing that they had to get to Leak early and often. They did not do either. They sat back in varrying shades of zone coverage ranging from the Tampa 2, to cover 3 and 4. They rushed three and rarely blitzed with any success at all. The failure to see the flow of the game and adjust to it resulted in one of the most unexpected and dominating performances that I will ever see.
One last point I want to make a comment about. That is the call to go for it on 4th down in the second quarter on his own 29 yard line was completly unfathomable to me. Here is a coach who has always played it close to the vest. Never taking and unneeded risk and generally being the deffinition of methodical. The move was the ultimate sign of desperation in a man who never lookes ruffeled or concerned on the sideline. The play call was in and of itself a bad decision. To call for a trap play with a hand off 4 yards deep was bad in a normal 4th down decsion. But to call that play when your offensive line had produced no push at all to that point in the game was bad. Joe Cohen destroyed Doug Datish and knocked Steve Rehring off his trap line and officaly blew the play and the game out of the water. It is one thing if you are Charlie Weis or Pete Carroll where going for it on 4th down is an over arching principal of you program for better or worse (see 4th and 2; 2006 Rose Bowl.) It is something entirely different in this situation. At that spot on the field, down by 10, with under four minutes to play in the first half….there is not a coach in the country who would pulled the trigger in that situation. Not one. Tressel said after the game that going for it was a show of confidence in his team. That might have been his intention but it surely did not come off that way. What it showed was a sense of desperation and agitation that I don’t think anyone has ever seen in Tressel before.
Finally some random thoughts from the game.
Where was James Laurinaitis? This game proved why he did not belong on the first team All-American list. He was a non factor all night. He had alot of tackles but he had no impact on this game at all.
I would never think that Florida could win with Reggie Nelson being a goast. He had one solo and one assist. Thats it.
I really want to play the 24/Prison Break promo drinking game.
If I see the Ford Washington DC driving test commercial again I will kill a kitten.
Now onto the 2006 wrap up.
2006 was a down year for College Football. I don’t think that it was that much worse than some of the other seasons we have had in the past such as the 1990 season. But it was a down year. 2005 was a classic filled with intense close faught games. Some amazing upsets, and near upsets. 2005 also had two of the most dominating single performances in the history of College Football with Reggie Bush going bonkers on the Bulldogs and Vince Young single handedly winning the national title for the Bevo Boys. Last year was capped by the best series of BCS bowls that we will ever see. This year was not even close. There is not a single game this year that could measure up to the Rose Bowl or the single greatest day of College Football ever simply known as October 15th. This year lacked something. I am not sure what it is but it did not feel nearly as exciting as last year. This year had some great games, WVU Rutgers, USC UCLA, OSU UM, USC OSU, LSU Auburn and Boise State OU. But none of them can measure up to last year with the exception of Boise OU and maybe OSU UM. In short this was a good year, but last year was simply amazing.
Top Five Games
Boise State vs Oklahoma
OSU vs UM
Rutgers vs WVU
LSU vs Auburn
UofF vs Arkansas
Top Five Plays
Boise State Hook and Ladder from Drison James to Jerard Rabb
Darrelle Rives punt return for a TD with help from Derek Kinder
Auburns block of an Eric Wilbur punt and subsequent return for a TD
Gaines Adams block, catch and return of a Wake Forrest field goal.
Troy Smith’s Houdini act against Penn State
Top Ten Teams
Florida Gators
Louisiana State Tigers
Boise State Broncos
Southern California Trojans
Ohio State Buckeyes
Michigan Wolverines
Louisville Cardinals
West Virginia Mountianeers
Wisconsin Badgers
Auburn Tigers
BCS Conferences
SEC
Big East
Big 10
PAC 10
Big 12
ACC
Non BCS Conferences
Mountain West
WAC
C-USA
MAC
Sun Belt
Top Ten Players
Calvin Johnson
Adrian Peterson
Gaines Adams
Troy Smith
Patrick Willis
Jamarcus Russell
Joe Thomas
Dwayne Jarrett
Brady Quinn
Marshawn Lynch
