End-around

College round-up

Ohio State @ Wisconsin - October 16th 2010


Ohio State took the poisoned chalice of a #1 ranking into Wisconsin, and promptly lost it. There's something special about Big 10 football when Autumn comes around. I'm in admiration of the breadth of talent across the SEC and the sheer scale, colours and vibrancy of that conference, but a wintry game in Madison or East Lansing has an utterly unique appeal.

Wisconsin played to their primary strength as they had when I saw them last against Michigan State; running the ball behind their giant offensive line. They built up a sizeable lead early on and forced Ohio State to be more aggressive on offense.

Terrelle Pryor simply couldn't respond. He couldn't throw with any accuracy, frequently firing the ball nose-down into the turf yards short of his receivers. Other times Pryor relied on the superhuman and apparent telepathic efforts of DeVier Posey, Dane Sanzenbacher and Jake Stoneburner to pluck the ball from the air and ground, but by the fourth quarter even they could not make the catches needed to move the chains.

His inconsistently was infuriating, as he has the ability to fire the ball with some zip down the middle and scramble with deceptive pace and agility on regular occasion. But worryingly, when chasing the game late and under pressure, Pryor looked unable to plant his feet properly before throwing and settle into any form of rhythm. He was rushing throws, looking down receivers, and under-throwing passes.

Without consistent passing accuracy, and appearing unable to leave the ball in running back Dan Herron's hands for any length of time, Ohio State were left rather toothless.

Wisconsin stuck to what they do best, and John Clay made the field appear as though it were tilted down the throats of the Buckeye defense. The blocks were again easily established; holding Ohio State defenders static and perfectly legally, whilst clearing out second level threats in addition. Clay often had a choice of several lanes to pick from, and did substantial damage as a result.

James White was out in force again, although largely featuring in power formations and running a more physical game than I had seen before. It's a mightily impressive tandem, and Ohio State were powerless to stop them.

Scott Tolzien was largely unimpressive when passing and benefitted from receiver Al Toon out-muscling State cornerback Chimdi Chekwa on multiple occasions. Chekwa is good when brought up to the line on blitz plays and a strong tackler, but was too easily hustled off the ball when deeper in pass coverage.

On other occasions Tolzien missed a great one-on-one chance with Toon racing down the left sideline by placing the pass too far to the inside, and later threw a pick when completely failing to see Buckeye safety Andrew Sweat racing across the field. Maybe I happen to only see his less-productive games, but I don't get any sense of a consistent deep-threat from Tolzien's passing game. Not important to Wisconsin when they're beating the number one team in the country, but potentially damaging to his pro potential. The Wisconsin quarterback threw just 16 passes all game.

The Buckeye defense looked to have slowed Wisconsin in the third quarter; bringing extra pressure up to the line against a tiring Badger front four and holding them to a solitary possession. But in the fourth, Tolzien used a combination of safe screen-passes to Toon, checkdown passes to White and the dominant run game to puncture any air left in the State balloon with a touchdown.

Wisconsin's corner coverage showed significant improvement from when I saw them last; Antonio Fenelus had excellent knockdowns and was equally effective in coming up to make tackles, Aaron Henry was unlucky to not stay in bounds when intercepting Pryor early on.

Wisconsin were still vulnerable over the middle for medium gains, however. Ohio State's receivers were, through design or Pryor's throws, brought back to the ball and drawn into space for solid receptions. But the strong play of the linebackers in the second half and JJ Watt's relentless pursuit against inadequate blocking ensured that the Buckeyes were rocked back on their heels on a regular basis, and this was just about enough to counter the holes in pass coverage.

So the offensive line and running game won the game for the Badgers, Pryor's inaccuracies cost the Buckeyes. Another top-ranked seed falls in college football.