The Rose Bowl Game - An Early Look
by Jonathan Franz on Dec 4, 2009 11:47 AM CST
in Ohio State
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Although the majority of selections won't be made until Sunday, it's officially bowl season on The Rivalry, Esq.
Let's inaugurate the fair-weather festivities with an introductory look at The Granddaddy of 'Em All, the 96th Rose Bowl Game. Having saved its best quarter of play for last, the Oregon Ducks captured the Pac 10 Conference Championship in the cold confines of Autzen Stadium last night, 37-33 over Oregon State. That means Eugene can finally take its seat at the table with Ohio State, who's been waiting patiently for almost three weeks to learn the name of its adversary.
Strength against Strength? Oregon's Offense versus Ohio State' Defense
I stayed late at a local Grandview pub to watch the game, and after three Bells winter white ales, my buddy turned to me and declared: "I like this matchup. It pits strength against strength." He's referring, of course, to Oregon's spectacular run-spread attack against Ohio State's rock solid 3-4 defense. I agreed, with slight reservation. The Buckeye's struggles against the spread offense are well documented. Oregon State, which boasted the best rushing defense in the Pac 10 coming into the Civil War, gave up 288 yards on the ground to the Ducks. (They gave up less to Stanford, and its almost-certain-to-be-a-Heisman-finalist tailback Toby Gerhart).
Make sure to go back and submit your picks for Week 14 of the Obligatory Predictions Contest. Weekly winners get a chance to write 500 words on the site.
The fact that Ohio State's defense, a unit that's adept at swallowing Big Ten power rushers, will be forced to de-stack the box, and dispatch into space to track a multifaceted (misdirectional) option attack should be cause for concern in Columbus. Last night, Oregon employed motion Pistol, two-back, and spread sweep sets, along with the bread-and-butter zone read to perfection against the Beavers.
But before you panic, remember, success begins and ends at the line of scrimmage. To compensate for the strength and depth of Ohio State's defensive line, Oregon will have to count numbers in the box, and hope for favorable blocking angles. When they get them, they can move on anyone like a hot knife through butter (see versus USC). When they can't, their attack is as flat as Kansas (see versus Boise State). If Ohio State's DT's can jam the middle and blow Oregon off the line early, they'll be sitting ducks.
But what about Oregon's lateral speed? Let me say this. While the Ducks appear to be sprightly at the receiver, and tailback positions, Quarterback Jeremiah Masoli isn't nearly the speedster that say, Terrelle Pryor is. Perhaps ironically, (like Oregon State did last night) Ohio State will try to force Masoli outside to limit the damage his powerful size can do north to south, while Oregon will try to force Terrelle Pryor inside to prevent him from skating to 12 yards a carry.
Thanks to the sideline-to-sideline speed injection we've received from Linebacker Brian Rolle, Ohio State is more than capable of keying Masoli and running him down on the edge. I'm more worried about bottling things up between the tackles.
How Bend But Not Break Comes into Play
Anyone who fears the return of Slow-Hi-O against the spread should remember the job Jim Heacock did against the Texas Longhorns in last year's Fiesta Bowl. A Longhorn team that was averaging some 43.9 points a game coming into Glendale was held to just 3 in the first half, and 24 overall. But the final total disguises the fact the Colt McCoy walked away from the game with his usual prodigious stats (41 of 59 for 414 yards).
Magic? Nope. Bend and not break.
Expect to see Oregon rack up a pile of yards on quick outs, and quick slants early on in drives as they march unimpeded down the field. But the closer they get to the goal, the tighter our corners cover, and a pass that Masoli could comfortably place three downs before, is suddenly jumped for a Pick 6. Ohio State has three players (Kurt Coleman, Ross Homan, and Anderson Russel) that rank in the Top 10 in conference for interceptions. Expect them to single-handedly mitigate big Oregon drives.
Thus, the early keys to the game:
Oregon Offense
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Stunt to achieve favorable blocking angles.
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Don't worry about going down the field early, keep the passing game short
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Finish what you start.
Ohio State Defense
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Win at the line.
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Flush Masoil outside.
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Bend, but don't break.
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If Ohio State's DT's can jam the middle and blow Oregon off the line early, they'll be sitting ducks.
Brilliant line there….If OSU looks confused up front early, game over. If not, it’s going to be a nice matchup.
I would like to say that Oregon is my favorite Pac-10 team/program and there is no team I’d rather see in a bowl game. The Ducks brings a lot to the “entertainment” aspect of football – flashy offense, offensive superstars, loud fans, and of course the jerseys.
The Rivalry, Esq.
"Ricky Stanzi is to interceptions as Journey is to 80s rock ballads...inextricably linked."
A note on the DT's
I’m really not worried about DT play, as Oregon does an excellent job neutralizing that strength by reading DT’s rather than try to block them. On top of that, switching up between reading DE’s and DT’s does a great job of making those players indecisive. If you’re not going against these plays all the time, it’s very tough to make the right decisions on these plays. This is how Oregon wears teams down as the game goes on.
Against OSU (previously giving up 98 yards per game), LaMichael James had a mere 6 yards just before half. At the end of the game, he had 166, and Blount piled up another 51. It’s just too tough for defenses to know what decisions to make as the game wears on and they keep seeing new looks.
--AddictedToQuack, SBNation's Oregon Ducks blog
Sorry, meant to link to this post from Smart Football also, on Oregon’s base running plays.
--AddictedToQuack, SBNation's Oregon Ducks blog
I read that post...
And it was intriguing, just as everything on Smart Football. I also saw a wrinkle the other day during the Civil War – the zone read was being slowed, so they came back with an option to the WR, who shuffled into the backfield, which threw OSU off. It was, in fact, smart football.
The Rivalry, Esq.
"Ricky Stanzi is to interceptions as Journey is to 80s rock ballads...inextricably linked."
by Graham Filler on Dec 5, 2009 10:23 AM CST up reply actions
That was definitely a new play and a nice wrinkle. The Duck coaching staff did an excellent job anticipating how the Beaver coaching staff would attempt to stop that play, and had Barner (backup running back) split out and available for options. Oregon pitched 3 times, and all 3 times it was successful, because OSU simply could not cover all the options Oregon had on the field.
--AddictedToQuack, SBNation's Oregon Ducks blog
Wow.
Right now, 78% of your poll respondents are picking Oregon in this one. Oh, ye of little faith.
I hear the concern out there about Oregon’s prodigious offense, but remember folks…the Pac-10 is known for offensive prowess. Oregon is ranked #7 in FBS in total offense.
Who’s above Oregon?
Boise St. and Texas, but also Houston and Nevada.
Ohio State is ranked #5 in total team defense.
Who’s above Ohio State?
Florida, Alabama, Nebraska, and Penn State.
My point?
If you compare the records of the Top 7 team defenses and the Top 7 team offenses, the defense wins by a fairly wide margin. The old maxim that “offense wins games, but defense wins championships” remains in full effect.
If we’re strength on strength, and the strength we represent just happens to be the defense, I like our chances. (It’s as true in the clarity of mid-afternoon from my couch as it was late last night in the haze of a pub prediction.)
*All stats are from Rivals.com rankings of 2009 Total Team Offense and Defense in FBS.
Courting mediocrity since 1964.
The '09 Pac 10 is starting to give me an '08 Big 12 vibe.
Lots of fun, gaudy offenses… but they put up such eye-popping stats in part because the defenses aren’t that great. The Big 12 had a rude awakening in the bowls last year when they ran into some teams that DID play good defense. Without knowing the match-ups, I don’t know if the same thing will happen to the Pac 10 this year (I kind of doubt it; last year, the Big 12 ran into a bunch of teams from the SEC and Big 10, where defense actually is played… I don’t think the Pac 10 will be facing as many good SEC/B10 defenses), although we do know that the Pac 10 champ will be playing a stout defense.
I think this bowl game sets up well for the Buckeyes. They get a month to prep for Oregon’s offense, which typically useful in devising ways to slow down high-powered, complex schemes. They have good tackling fundamentals (something in short supply last night). They have a very strong front seven. I suspect they’ll be underdogs and I wouldn’t be surprised if Oregon expected to have their way with them (for many reasons: OSU’s from the big slow B10, Oregon beat USC and Purdue while OSU didn’t, etc.), so it’s entirely possible that they’ll be overconfident.
It would be better if OSU had a more accurate passer than Ye Olde Arm Punter — Purdue, Oregon St, and Stanford all had some luck shredding that secondary — but c’est la vie. He should be able to make plays on the ground, along with Saine and Herron. The big thing for him will be avoiding costly turnovers.
Last year, OSU went into the Fiesta as underdogs expected to get blown out by mighty Texas and had them on the ropes until the very end and one costly blown tackle. I definitely don’t think this Oregon team is as good as that Texas team.
Big 12 2008 vs. Pac 10 2009
The big difference in comparing the two conferences is that the Pac 10 actually plays respectable teams in the out of conference games so you can gauge their strength. You had no idea about the B12 last year because they played a bunch of patsies and then got credit for beating on each other.
I think the more important matchup is OSU’s running game against oregon’s defense. Nobody can completely stop oregon, but if ohio state runs the ball and doesn’t turn it over they can control the game, keep the score managable and should come out with a win. (I don’t always like Tresselball but it does usually work) I don’t think this matchup is nearly as bad as people think esp since oregons run D is mediocre and Ohio States O-line was mauling people at the end of the year. what is it 5 straight 200+ yards on the ground? Thats against some solid D’s as well. I know the big ten has struggled in bowls lately, but 80% oregon? no way.
"Tresselball" is not well-suited for Oregon
We haven’t seen regular Tresselball this year, anyway. This year has been Hyper Xtreme Tresselball 10.0. I can think of two possible reasons for the “evolution”: Terrelle Pryor is even worse than we think, and/or Tressel’s ego is becoming similarly “inextricably linked” to Tresselball.
Against USC, for this new and improved Tresselball to result in a victory, the Trojans had to fail to score on something like a dozen straight drives. If they found the end zone even once during that time, we were hosed. He doesn’t know how to treat an opponent like anything other than an offensively-challenged Big Ten team. It almost worked against USC, because they’re terrible. It hasn’t worked in recent history against explosive teams, and it won’t work on New Year’s Day.
by Magical Ruddy Duck on Dec 5, 2009 12:55 PM CST reply actions
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