College Football Top 25: 10 Reasons Why Ohio State Buckeyes Shouldn't Be Ranked
They have been the face of the Big Ten forever. Ohio State has put together six consecutive conference titles to add to the national title they won in 2002. No team in the Big Ten has come even close to being as good over the last decade as the Ohio State Buckeyes have been.
Does that mean they deserve a Top 25 ranking in the preseason of 2011? I don't think so.
It's not just the off-field issues, though they certainly add to the mounting issues facing the Buckeyes this year. There are a number of reasons the Buckeyes don't deserve a Top 25 ranking.
Such as...
Terrell Pryor Moves on
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I get that the Ohio State University recruits very well and that they are rarely without talent. I could probably repeat that sentence at the beginning of every slide, so let's just consider it a standing sentement.
However, that argument really only works when the replacements have some semblance of playing experience and your departed starter didn't have a 5.59 yard-per-carry rushing average and 754 yards rushing to go with his 2772 yards passing and 27 touchdowns.
Joe Bauserman may have had a better passing percentage than Pryor (72.7 versus 65.0 respectively), but he only had 22 attempts in 2010, 19 in 2009 and six in 2008. While that's better than no experience, it would be hard to expect much of a guy who has seen less action in three years than the former starter saw in a single game.
There's no one in the stable with Pryor's experience in both running and passing the ball and that's going to cripple Ohio State's offense more than they want to admit.
The Defense Is Hurting
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In three of the last five years, Ohio State has had the best overall defense in the Big Ten. The other two years, they were still in the top five.
However, how's this for a list of names? How about Brian Rolle, Ross Homan, Jermale Hines, Devon Torrence and Cameron Heyward? Those five make up five of the top six tacklers on Ohio State's defense in 2010.
They're also all gone.
Oh yeah, throw Chimdi Chekwa in there and the list would also cover three of the top four in interceptions.
Toss in Dexter Larimore and you can now also say it contains three of the top five in sacks.
That's seven (of 11) starters from the Buckeye defense. All gone.
I don't care who you are, when you lose that quantity and quality from one side of the ball, there are going to be some issues. This defense is practically gutted and will undoubtedly be taking a step back.
Who Is This Fickell Guy?
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Of course, every football fan who has followed the Ohio State fiasco knows that Luke Fickell has been on staff at Ohio State for quite some time. Lately, he has been linebacker coach and co-defensive coordinator for the Buckeyes.
Fickell was, of course, slated to take over for Coach Tressell through the five game suspension at the start of the 2011 season. As soon as Tressell stepped down as the head coach however, he was slated to be the interim head coach for the entire year.
Now, Buckeye fans may be perfectly content with the choice of Fickell as the interim head coach and many think he will earn the position full-time. They may be right in their faith of Fickell.
No doubt he could be a tremendous coach. However, what experience does he have with making mid-game adjustments for both the offense and the defense? What experience does he have with making minute changes on special teams?
There are many nuances to the game of football, such as clock management, in-game strategy and playing the psychological game. Is Fickell ready for all of that? Can he so easily replace a man like Jim Tressell?
There are bound to be some growing pains for the new head coach and I think those pains will cost the Buckeyes a couple of games this season.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Oh, the Drama!
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Of course the team is going to pull together. Of course they're going to say the right things with a microphone or a tape recorder shoved in their face. Of course, there really is a possibility that all of the hoopla will inspire the team to rise above the madness and win a seventh consecutive conference title.
And of course, the coaches are going to do their best to shield the players from the worst of the negative press.
However, dealing with a single player (or even a few) doing something wrong, and the subsequent fallout, is one thing. Dealing with a handful of players that will miss the first half of the season, at least one star player that has decided to move on, and dealing with the loss of a head coach, is something entirely different.
You can't shield the players from this. You can't just buckle down, pull out a little motivation and make all of this not real. You can't recover that easily from what Ohio State is going through. You just can't.
This is a major distraction, regardless of what the players and coaches say to the press. This already rearranges the way they were going to play the game in 2011, now it will affect the way they approach the game as well.
This is big folks, and it's going to play havoc on this team this year.
The Schedule
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The idea behind a preseason ranking is to predict, in a sense, who we think will end up where when everything is said and done. You don't put a team firmly in the Top 25 if you think they're not going to end up there when the season ends in December.
Ohio State has to travel to Miami, Florida to take on the Hurricanes on September 17. They follow that up with a home date against a Colorado team that is thoroughly beatable, but that also happens to fall immediately before the start of Big Ten play, and while they're still missing the full compliment of suspended players.
The Buckeyes play host to a Michigan State team that desperately wants to kick them while they're down, then has to go on the road to take on conference newcomer, Nebraska.
Three of those four teams could knock the Buckeyes off on a good year, but in this season, it could be any combination of the four.
Traveling to Champaign is never as easy as it may seem and the follow-up date against Wisconsin could easily be the toughest contest on the entire schedule. That gets the Bucks through October, but they could be in the midst of the worst season in a generation by that point.
November starts off easily enough with a home date against Indiana and a road trip to Purdue, but the season ends with a final home stand against Penn State followed by a trip to Ann Arbor for a rivalry game that could mean even less than the Rich Rod era, only with the shoe on the other foot.
This schedule isn't easy and the Buckeyes have to take on two very good teams without a full compliment. Then they have to take on a few more very good teams while trying to get all of their pieces on the same page. Finally, they've got a rough ending to a rough season.
Even if everything were hunky dorey in Columbus, I wouldn't predict the Buckeyes to come out of this year with anything better than two losses. Heap on the extra helping of crap that has befallen this program, and I think we're in line for a three-or-four loss show.
The "Others"
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Terrell Pryor opted not to return for his senior season, choosing instead to take his chances on the NFL. As we speak, he is doing his part to make himself eligible and available for a potential supplemental draft.
The thing is, no supplemental draft will be held if Pryor is the only party interested in participating. He has other options, such as waiting until next April's draft or working in another league. However, if virtually anyone else decides to make themselves available for the supplemental draft, then Pryor could find his way onto an NFL team yet this fall.
How much do you suppose he has been talking to DeVier Posey or Dan Herron about potentially skipping their abbreviated 2011 season? Even if he wasn't speaking to them, how much do you think they have been weighing that option in light of Pryor's move?
Posey, Herron and a few others are missing virtually half of this coming season. There will be no Heisman Trophies or any other other awards. If the NCAA were to play a round of "speed punishment", there might not be a post-season game to attend (though that's unlikely).
Do they want to hang around for a seven game season or will they take the opportunity to jump into the NFL and potentially play an abbreviated season where they can legally be paid for it?
If they do jump ship, it places Ohio State in even more turmoil and makes a Top 25 season that much less likely.
The New Big Ten Won't Be so Easy to Dominate
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I hear several fans in Columbus and around the nation suddenly letting go of a good guffaw. Go ahead, laugh it up, fuzz ball (geeky Star Wars reference).
Seriously though, this isn't the year to make too many assumptions. The past is the past and this is truly a new Big Ten.
It's not just because Nebraska has come to join the party, though their admission does add a respectable measure of strength to the conference. It's more about the overall attitude that will permeate the upcoming season.
Coaches will suddenly find their "three-year-plan" bumped up a year or two. Programs that were thinking in the long-term in regards to coaching changes and shifts in philosophy, suddenly jump the gun and take a more short-term approach.
Why?
This is all new. Everyone wants to be in the hunt of the new Big Ten title. They all want to set the tone for the future as far as where their place is within their new division and within the new outlook of the conference. They all feel that they have a legitimate shot of getting to Indianapolis in early December.
Even though the only things that have truly changed are the addition of one new team, a slightly different approach to scheduling and an extra game to potentially play at the end of the season, it all feels like a completely different conference.
Now is the time for the perennial bottom-dwellers to make a statement that they are contenders in this new version of the conference. Now is the time to turn the tables on tradition and make fresh starts.
Everyone will come out this season letting everything hang out. It will be footballs-to-the-wall from September through November and Ohio State is perhaps the one team missing the most pieces.
Don't expect the rest of the conference to roll over just because this is Ohio State. They've smelled the blood in the water and they're awfully hungry right now.
There Are 25 Better Teams out There
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Okay, for a moment, let's put aside all of the Tressel/Pryor madness and whatnot and be real for a moment.
I already laid out some of the issues facing the defense this season. It's a horrendous amount of turnover that unit is facing and one can't expect too much from their replacements, even if this is Ohio State we're talking about.
The offense doesn't fare a whole lot better, to be honest.
The Buckeyes lose two of their top three rushers in Pryor and Brandon Saine. That may not be that big of a deal considering Herron is still supposed to return this year, but he's missing for the first five games of the year and could yet decide to forgo his senior year in favor of a supplemental draft, a la Pryor.
DeVier Posey may return, and that would be great, but especially because Dane Sanzenbacher—the Buckeyes leading receiver—has departed.
Of course, QB Terrelle Pryor is no longer a part of the Buckeye team, taking everything he did for the offense with him.
Oh yeah, did I mention that the Buckeyes lose K Devin Barclay?
There's so much turnover on this program, it isn't even funny and the losses have come on both sides of the ball (and special teams).
Meanwhile, programs across America are returning tons of talented veterans that are ready to lead their teams to the promised land. We can talk recruiting and overall talent all night long, but none of that means nearly as much as having proven, experienced talent leading the charge.
To put it bluntly and honestly, the Buckeyes aren't necessarily even amongst the 25 best teams in the nation until they can prove they are. And if you think they'll cruise through the Big Ten en route to an easy Top 10 ranking, please see slide eight again.
The Moral Dillema
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Yup, time to come back to this. Hey, it really is that important.
We can argue the finer points of the entire affair until the cows come home. No, the players and coaches at Ohio State did not commit any kind of actual crime. No, they didn't necessarily gain any kind of advantage that could be used on the field, other than the fact that they were allowed to play at all.
Blah, blah, blah, blah. Save it Kenicke.
I've heard it all before and it still doesn't change the fact that players and coaches alike agreed to abide by a certain set of rules when they joined the Ohio State and college football families. They broke those rules. Now it's time to pay the piper.
The NCAA likely won't conclude their full investigation, hearings, etc., until well after this season has started and therefore won't officially hand down a punishment for the crimes committed until after the season is over.
If you want to split hairs here, the Buckeyes are still technically eligible for preseason, seasonal and BCS rankings right up to the point where the NCAA says they aren't.
The likelihood is that the Buckeyes will be handed at least a couple years worth of bowl bans. They will undoubtedly forfeit all of their wins from 2010, with the possible exception of the Sugar Bowl because the players were deemed eligible for that game.
Is there anyone with any sense of reality left to them that really thinks Ohio State is going to get out of this deal without some fairly serious sanctions handed down to them?
The point being that this program is in big trouble, so what's the point of letting them have "one last hurrah" before the hammer falls? Everyone knows its coming, so put them out of their misery already. Levee the darned sanctions and let them start serving them immediately.
From a moral perspective, how do we justify that this is a program that has gotten into big trouble and are about to be handed a stiff sentence, yet they can compete for everything including the national championship this year?
How do we explain that to a group of 13-year-olds that wonder why they can't defer their groundings until after the school dance? Where's their investigation into facts and private hearing before a committee? Why can't they postpone their punishment until after the school year, since grounding could deny them a series of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities?
You get in trouble, you get punished immediately.
Innocent until proven guilty, you say? Fine, then give them the benefit of a speedy trial. Get this whole thing in front of the NCAA before August, and then give them until September 1st to make a decision. If they don't have good proof that the allegations against Tressel and the school are true, acquit and put this mess behind us.
If they do, then give them their punishment and let's get on with life. It's ridiculous to me that the NCAA should drag this thing out (as with others), all while the team in question is allowed to enjoy equal and full benefits of being in the club.
That's a worse miscarriage of justice than the fact that players can't sell their own property—you know the "crime" that pretty much started this whole mess in the first place.
The Culmination of Everything
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I understand Buckeye fans holding tightly to the belief that everything will be fine. In the grand scope of things, they will be. Eventually, everything will work out and the Ohio State University will come out just as they have for so many years—as a perennial contender for every title available to them.
What else can you cling to when the weight of the world seems to be bearing down on your team's collective shoulders?
However, Supermen these boys aren't. Talented athletes, yes. Supermen, no.
You're asking a lot of players that are young, that have seen precious little playing time, and that have been caught unprepared in the whirlwind of this NCAA broo-ha-ha, to ignore what everyone everywhere is saying, to replace a ton of very special talent seamlessly and to carry this team to a seventh consecutive Big Ten title.
Not asking much, are you?
The losses on defense alone are staggering. The departure and/or losses on offense make it doubly so. The loss of their beloved head coach tosses everything like a caesar salad and the pending sanctions just make it all the more likely that focus isn't staying where it needs to stay.
On top of all of that, the schedule is about as tough as its been in a few years now, there's a new threat to take on in Nebraska, and this new alignment has teams re-energized.
I get that Ohio State has brushed off dilemma after dilemma and just kept rolling their way to conference titles. That's wonderful, but this isn't like every other year. A "perfect storm" of events have befallen the Buckeyes and it will take its toll early and often this season.
It's not one; it's not two; it's not even three separate things that will bring the Buckeyes down this year. It's a culmination of things, and when you put them all together, there's no way this is a Top 25 team right out of the gates.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
