Ohio State Football: Why Terrelle Pryor's Toughest Opponent Is Terrelle Pryor

Even though it is only a month into the season and Ohio State has only played mostly marginal competition at best outside of Miami, QB Terrelle Pryor has looked quite spectacular.

As the season starts to focus on conference play, the rest of the Big Ten will have to deal with a player who has improved by leaps and bounds from where he was a year ago at this time, where he had a disappointing effort in a loss to USC.

The difference is very easy to see when looking at the stats. In a year, Pryor has cut his turnovers in half and nearly doubled his touchdown totals from 7 in 2009 to 13 in 2010.

And although Pryor has become a much better player than ever in his career as a Buckeye, he still tends to make potential mistakes that a more capable opponent would make into a turnover.

That's why the only thing stopping Terrelle Pryor this season is no longer the coaching staff, which now seems to have great faith in the junior QB as is evidenced by their offensive rankings, eighth in total offense and third in points per game.

Against the better defenses in the Big Ten such as Iowa, Wisconsin, and Penn State, the toughest opponent of Terrelle Pryor will be himself.

Even though Pryor is much stronger as a passer and a runner, he still has problems with decision-making, sometimes leaving passes in precarious locations.

If he continues to do that, he might not be able to have as many second chances as he had against weaker teams like Ohio and Eastern Michigan.

This is nothing to discredit the talent of the other teams on the Buckeyes' Big Ten schedule, but rather to illustrate how far Pryor has come in his development in just one season.

It seems as if he has started to understand the mental aspect of the game and how hard he has to work on every snap, even against marginal opponents, to succeed in game situations.

But that will be tested every week when Pryor faces a different, physical defense that teams in the Big Ten are well-known for.

And we all know that any given Saturday, any team can lose.

And if last season's shocking loss to Purdue means anything, its that Terrelle Pryor still has to prove he can perform against Big Ten defenses at a high level.

He needs to find ways to protect the football, yet at the same time keep the OSU offense which has been red hot this season rolling, although they will never approach 70 points again for a very long time.

But there is little doubt of what Pryor is truly capable of, as Jim Tressel continues to push him by not giving him his first "winning" grade of his collegiate career despite his incredible numbers thus far.

This is because Tressel knows his QB, and he knows that what his QB needs is to stay motivated and to take every game and every snap seriously.

By letting Pryor have a more open playbook, featuring shovel passes and QB pass patterns, something that has surprised many fans used to Tressel's conservative style, the offense has shown it can potentially live up to the hype.

But that means that Pryor has to be very efficient.

If he can't be, the offense will get much more conservative, which could be bad news because neither Brandon Saine or Daniel "Boom" Herron have been too spectacular when it comes to having a strong running attack.

But truly speculating the worst is not wise because things can change in the blink of an eye: the time between when a defender can jump in front of a receiver to steal the ball away or for the receiver to wrestle the ball away and go down the field for points.

And hopefully for Pryor and the Buckeyes, they see much less of the former, and much more of the latter, because the going is never easy in the Big Ten.

And they will have to be ready if they are dreaming of holding the crystal football in January.

This article is featured on Storm the Field. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @bielik_tim for links to other articles and to ask me questions.

In addition, fans who visit Storm the Field will get a special treat to commemorate 2,000 hits: a review of the new movie "The Social Network" starring Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Timberlake which comes out in theatres Friday.