Bleacher Report - Jim Tressel

The Top 9 College Football Coaches of 2009

Brendan Collins — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:26:23 -0500

There are several different Coach of the Year trophies the Bear Bryant Coach of the Year, Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year, Liberty Mututal Coach of the Year as well as each conference having their own awards. Here we will break down the best coaching performances of the 2009 season NOT in rank but alphabetical order.

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End The Terrelle Pryor Bashing!

Gerald Ball — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 01:21:53 -0500

We have all heard it.

He stinks.

Classic overrated recruit.

A bust.

His fundamentals, mechanics, field vision: horrible.

He makes way too many mistakes. He can't read defenses.

A knucklehead.

The only thing worse than his accuracy is his decision-making.

His coaches should cut their losses and move him to wide receiver, where he has a better NFL future anyway.

Yep, those comments — and worse— about sum it up. About Terrelle Pryor?

Er, no.

Instead, they were said about Vince Young as late as halfway through the 2004 season that ended with Texas going 11-1 and Young winning the first of two consecutive Rose Bowl MVPs. How quickly we forget that the same guy who a lot of people consider one of the best QBs of the decade — in a short list with Tim Tebow and Matt Leinart— was almost benched and moved to WR after playing horribly in a 13-0 loss to Oklahoma.

And it is not just Vince Young. The same things were also being said about guys like Troy Smith (also Ohio State), Michael Robinson and Daryll Clark of Penn State and (an old name for you) Charlie Ward of FSU.

Terrelle Pryor is either better or more accomplished than all of those guys were in their second years in college. Again, going back to the Vince Young comparison, Young didn't even win the QB job outright until his third year in Austin. His first year was a redshirt, and his second year he time-shared the position with a future Arena League QB. Young's final year at Texas was the first in which he threw more TDs than INTs, an accomplishment that Pryor (16 TDs, 10 INTs this year) has achieved already.

Unless they are running primarily option-oriented offenses like the old Nebraska veer or the Rich Rodriguez offense at West Virginia, it is very common for dual threat QBs to struggle to pick up the college game.

However, strugles are not limited to dual threat QBs. Dropback passers often have the same problems. The list of recent dropback QBs who played very well as true or redshirt freshmen or as true sophomores basically begins and ends with Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and Philip Rivers.

That's why it is so common for teams to do their best to let dropback passers sit until their third year. Dual threat QBs, however, often play earlier because of their ability to make plays running the football.

So why all the negative scrutiny on Pryor and QBs like him when it is common, indeed expected for QBs to struggle their first two years in college? And why single out Pryor in particular, knowing full well that his already offense-challenged team lost their top 2 WRs and top RB to the NFL and their projected starting RB missed the season due to injury? It isn't as if Pryor can be accused of exploiting a loaded team filled with guys who are going to be first round draft picks at WR and RB the next two years.

The answer should come as no surprise: Pryor's critics are those who simply don't like dual threat QBs.

They say "He'll never be a good QB, he should move to WR" because they are unlikely to admit that ANY dual threat QB is any good. Dual threat QBs are accepted as necessary evils at programs like West Virginia and Georgia Tech, but this is Ohio State we are talking about.

These are the guys who feel that all the top programs that represent college football should stick with the passing game even if it means never winning anything with it. (That's the REAL reason why the media is doing their best to run Rich Rodriguez off from Michigan despite knowing full well that he is rebuilding with true freshmen and sophomores. Do you know who these same people were promoting for the Michigan job before Rodriguez was hired? Jeff Tedford of Cal! The same one who runs the #4 program in the Pac-10!).

The "he should give it up and move to WR!" crowd say that because they feel that Pryor — and all like him — should be playing WR to begin with, even if the guy throwing him the ball is mediocre at best (like, you know, every Ohio State QB since the great BOBBY HOYING).

That doesn't apply to everyone, however. The rest are simply misinformed. These are people who only saw guys like Vince Young, Troy Smith, Darryl Clark, Michael Robinson, and Charlie Ward when they were upperclassmen winning conference and national titles, and assumed that those QBs were always that good. They had no idea how up-and-down those guys were until they became upperclassmen.

And even this group often has their opinions shaped by pocket passer chauvinists who ignore that Carson Palmer didn't do squat until nearly halfway through his 5th season at USC!

So ignore the Pryor bashers. They are either misinformed or don't want the guy to succeed in the first place. Which one describes you?

Now I am not saying that Terrelle Pryor will ever be a great college QB. I am saying that the people who are pretending that he should be one already either don't know that it takes dual threat QBs a couple of years to develop just like dropback passing QBs, or would rather Ohio State keep playing Todd Boeckmans, Justin Zwicks, Austin Mohermans and Steve Bellisaris no matter how good Pryor gets.

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Buckeyes Keys to Beating Oregon in the Rose Bowl

Kyle Strittholt — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:04:22 -0500

At the beginning of the season the Buckeyes were projected to finish second or third in the Big Ten, but for the fifth consecutive year they came out on top.

People have constantly been criticizing the Buckeyes for being to conservative of a team and it is true they are, but it's because of this that they have been in the BCS more than any other team in college football.

Early on in the season conservative play calling was the least of their worries, it was the misuse of Terrelle Pryor that dug them deep early on.

The thing that Jim Tressel and the offensive coaches need to realize is that Pryor is a plague for defenses that needs to be unleashed.

They tried really hard to make him a traditional pocket passer when they should have been utilizing his skills to make him affective instead of putting shackles on his feet.

When Pryor lets the game come to him and gets into a comfort zone that is when this offense will explode.

It wasn't until Troy Smith was a senior that he completely became an efficient passer, and it may take just as long for Pryor to develop.

Right now he needs to do what he can to put points on the board instead of this offense settling for field goals and punts.

Terrelle Pryor is the key for the Buckeyes winning even though it has been the whole running game for Ohio State that has won their games at the end of the season.

After a late loss against USC and an upset after playing Purdue the Bengals have turned it on and won the Big Ten and will now play in the Rose Bowl game against Oregon.

Oregon is a solid football program. They have a few solid running backs and a duel threat quarterback to worry about.

Out of the last four teams the Buckeyes have faced in the BCS this is their best chance of winning they have had.

Against Florida they had to deal with Chris Leak and Tim Tebow, along with a lot of young talent that always goes along with Florida.

Against LSU they couldn’t outscore a good offense with only Beanie Wells having a terrific game.

Last year against Texas they were going against perhaps the best quarterback in college football who led them down the field with less than two minutes left and scored with 16 seconds on the clock.

Now this season against the Oregon they don’t have anyone that stands out on the Heisman board. They aren’t playing the top three teams in the nation. They are up against a Pac 10 team that doesn’t have a dominant passing game like the other teams have had.

Yes, Oregon crushed a USC team that Ohio State lost to earlier on this year, but this offense is a run oriented offense in which the Buckeyes have strived to stop.

The biggest weakness in this game for the Buckeyes is whether or not Terrelle Pryor will be the dominating force that he should be instead of making mistakes that the team can’t come back from.

The Buckeye’s defense is as dominating as any defense in the nation. Their front seven have been able to get pressure on the quarterback in key situations like they did against Iowa early on in the season. They have stumped some of the more explosive offenses in the nation like Penn State.

The defense is the key to the Buckeyes winning this game, and Terrelle Pryor has to be turnover free and the Buckeyes have the upper hand in this BCS Bowl where I think they will be victorious for the first time in the Fiesta Bowl in 2006.

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2009 Regular Season Review: College Football's Most Memorable Moments

Josh Klein — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:07:36 -0500

Everyone has seen this reception played over and over again on ESPN. One of the marquee catches of the 2005 season. Brodie Croyle to Tyrone Prothro with only a few seconds left on the clock in the first half. Contrary to popular belief the play was not a touchdown. Prothro's knee was down on the one yard line, but they scored on the next play to send themselves into the half down only 21-17. Alabama went on to win the game 30-21, blanking the Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles in the second half. So what games, plays, or moments go down as the most memorable for the 2009 regular season? The following is my humble opinion on the ten most significant moments, games, and performances this season. Enjoy, and as always, just my opinion, feel free to enlighten, add or take away by leaving a comment or two.

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