Buckeyes Look to Buck the Trend

(Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

With just weeks until the official start of summer football workouts the pressure is on at the Woody Hayes Athletic Complex in Columbus, Ohio. 

The Buckeyes have started each of the last two seasons ranked in the top five, only to face the chants of “overrated!” as they left the field after each year’s bowl games. 

This is not consistent with the legacy of a very proud and storied Ohio State football program. The expectations have been lowered a notch with most pre-season polls ranking then between eight and tenth this year.

These lower expectations could bode well for the Bucks if they can manage to have a strong showing against Navy and win against a University of Southern California team that will be favored coming into the horseshoe in September.

While there is not a great degree of pressure on head coach, Jim Tressel, as long as he continues to beat down arch-rival Michigan and remain in the BCS title picture every year—there are a few members of his coaching staff with whom fans are not entirely happy.

The alumni in Columbus don’t very much care for having their faces rubbed in the embarrassment of its clubs' last few defeats at the hands of SEC opponents and have been known to have subtle effects in the personnel that occupy the offices at 2491 Olentangy River Road.

Although the defensive scheme that Co-Defensive Coordinator Jim Heacock employs is called a “Zone-Blitz,” it is a well known fact that coach Heacock is not a big fan of the blitz.

This is very understandable given his “old-school” roots, however the game is changing rapidly.

He has always been a good coach in terms of developing talent over the course of a player’s career. But he has been reluctant to throw young athletes into the fray and live with the sometimes undisciplined mistakes that young players can make at times. T

his does not affect the Buckeyes much during the Big Ten season, but it has exposed the team in many of the bowl match-ups over the past decade.

Three-hundred pound men exert a lot of energy playing football in general. But, in the Big Ten, the typical team runs between 60 and 65 offensive plays per game. The typical South Eastern Conference team, however, runs between 73 and 78 plays.

Add these two facts together and you can see why needing to have the ability to lean on more than just your top five or six guys is vital. 

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