Late Night Ramblings: Presser Notes, Facemasks, & The Minor Leagues

Drew Thurman (10:11 pm)

1) Tressel's weekly press conference revealed some bummer news this afternoon, as Ross Homan and Christian Bryant will miss this week's game against Purdue.

"Injury-wise, I was telling someone, Ken, I think, at lunch, the only guy that really concerns me, Ross Homan is going to be out. That concerns you. He'll be out for a couple weeks probably, but his thing will be fine. A little bit concerned about Christian Bryant. He had an infection last week and we thought we had it under control and he played a little bit in the game and then he had a not very good reaction to it on the plane ride back once we finally got on the plane, and he's been over at Ohio State Medical Center trying to get it under control and I don't know all the whys and the wherefores and whatnot, but it doesn't look like he'll be out of there until late this week and just want to make sure that we get that calmed down, you never know with infections and whatnot, so obviously he won't have a week of practice."

As we spent a lot of time talking about prior to the season, there is definitely a lot of luck involved in a national championship run. Unfortunately, OSU has had very little of it when it comes to the injury department, especially in the secondary. Even though the Buckeyes are only playing Purdue and Minnesota the next two weeks, I still worry about the cohesion of the defense heading into the last three games. On a positive note, Dorian Bell and Storm Klein are both back in the mix after being banged up. Also, J.B. Shugarts will continue to fight through his foot injury to play the rest of the season.

2) Tressel also reflected on the Wisconsin game. He was quick to credit how well Wisconsin played while also praising his team for never quitting, which I thought was the biggest positive from Saturday night's game. He also spent some time diagnosing the major discrepancy between the Buckeyes and the Badgers:

"I think the one thing that isn't as glaring to the casual observer is that first down and your success on first down is so critical, and you look back a year ago, we did a really good job of putting them behind the count. We had some early down sacks on them and put them second and a mile, and this year I think 17 of the 27 first down plays that they had resulted in more than four yards, and then all of a sudden if you're ahead of the count, it's playing offensive football is a whole different thing. I think we were 14 out of 29 where we had four yards or more, which, you know, isn't dominant by any respect, but I think that first down situation, we talk about every play as being a different situation, how did you do on first down, how did you do on third down, how did you do kickoff cover versus kickoff cover, punt cover versus punt cover and so forth. But I thought a significant part of this game is that they did an excellent job on first down."

---

3) One of the most interesting blurbs from the press conference was Tressel's comments on the defensive line. He was asked why only Jonathan Hankins was rotated in during Wisconsin's 19 play, 94 yard drive. Is this a sign of how thin our depth really is on the defensive line?

"I can remember many times we’ve talked since last February that one of the concerns was that five of our eight in our eight-man rotation were graduating or going out early, one of the two. So, yes, we were concerned about would we mature to the point where we could get into an eight-man rotation. Johnathan Hankins, I think, has been a guy that’s come along. We think Adam Bellamy‘s coming along, Garrett Goebel‘s coming along. What you get into in a ball game like this is, you know, is it the right time and the right place to put someone in? Obviously the conclusion that was drawn in that drive in particular or in that game was that certain guys played, certain guys didn’t, but that’s probably been something we’ve talked about as much as anything is that if we were going to progress to become the team we would like to be, we have to grow fast with some of the younger guys and that’s still our goal and — but are we as deep and can we rotate as much as when we had — you know, you had Thaddeus and you had Lawrence Wilson, you had Doug Worthington, you had Todd Denlinger, you had Rob Rose. Those guys all were the rotators last year and, you know, they’re rotating elsewhere right now. But that’s where we are. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Jim would tell you that he’s disappointed with the progression of Adam or Garrett or Solomon Thomas or anyone, but he just, at the moment, felt like that wasn’t the best decision."

To boil it all down, yes, Tressel and company know this is an issue. You would hope that guys like Garrett Goebel and Solomon Thomas would have progressed enough at this point to play, and it is bit concerning that a true freshman has already leaped both of these guys. Let's face the facts folks, this defense is just plain thin this season. We really took the depth we had last year for granted.

4) In case you were wondering, Pryor's Heisman stock is way down. Shocker, I know. Though we all know he isn't going to win the Heisman this year, the experts from ESPN have him tied with Randall Cobb from Kentucky. I know No. 2 had a rough game on primetime, but you have to be kidding me.

5) JoePa is reliving his glory days, and thinks football should get rid of the facemask. With the NFL continuing to come down on players for helmet-to-helmet hits, Paterno just wants to go back to the good old days.

6) John Walters thinks Pryor would have been better had he picked Michigan. Ummmm, what? Last time I checked college quarterbacks wanted to molded into starters on Sunday, not playing in the minor leagues.