Help me understand this:
First, I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm honestly asking where you are coming from here.
When I first read the bolded part, I thought it was ludicrous. Against the four eams you listed the Buckeyes recent performances:
- Wisconsin: 8 game win streak and 11 of last 12
- Iowa: won 5 of last 6
- Michigan State: 6 game win streak
- Penn State: 5 game win streak and 9 of last 10
If you are (or were) seriously worried that Ohio State wouldn't be competitive against those teams I think that is pessimistic to the point of ridiculousness. I don't *THINK* that is what you meant though. Rereading it I realized that with the "in all of those games" it could be read to mean more a competitive chance to sweep the group.
Last season- OHio State struggled with teams that had these 3 things:
1 were highly talented
2. Could run the ball physically
3. Had Offensive coordinators who knew how to take advantage of their completely predictable, vanilla defensive scheme.
They lost 2 of those games and nearly lost 2 others ( Utah, Nebraska)
I assumed they would improve those things this season with the coaching changes to defense and the offensive line. But I didn’t know how long those things would take to be visible.
I also thought, and said, ND will be as good as anyone on the schedule on both lines, so they would slow the game down and run clock and make OSU drive the whole field patiently. (PFF has ND listed as one of the nations best O-lines and D-lines)
OSU showed dramatic improvement on running when the opponent knows your running, stopping the run, and making it difficult to call offensive plays, because the defense is disguised.
when you have a 5 week stretch- of 4 teams known to be physical on your schedule- that can wear a team down. ( Wisconsin, Iowa, MSU, and Penn State)
Based on what I saw Saturday, they look substantially more prepared to wether that than they did last season.
The winning trends you mention are great. But it won’t mean anything during the actual game. Just like their winning streak against UM last season didn’t help them from being physically pushed around all day.
Why is this so hard for you to understand?
Stats tell a story, but there is nuance and momentum and human aspects to the real games.
Did I not call the style of game versus ND correctly? Again- look at Georgia’s first game last season- a 10-3 win over Clemson.
Teams look different in week 5-6 than they do in Week 1.
Now if they don’t look any different against the lessor teams in terms of offensive explosiveness- I will start to feel differently. But based on that one game, how it played out, the quality of the opponent- I am very optimistic that they will be hard to beat by any style of team.
