Reviewing the tape-Boiling the Makers

This one was never in doubt as Ohio State roared out of the gates and crushed the visiting Purdue Boilermakers 49-0 at the Horseshoe in Columbus.The 7-1,3-1 Buckeyes were never threatened in both avenging a loss to Purdue last season and bouncing back from the deflating defeat in Madison to the Wisconsin Badgers.Ohio State visits 1-7 Minnesota this Saturday in a night game that I am sure that ABC/ESPN has to be thrilled about showing in prime time.

Buckeye Branches

1) Offensive player of the game has to go to Boom Herron.Herron has often been the whipping boy here,but he came out early and established an attitude for the game with hard nosed runs between the tackles that showed Purdue that this was not their day.

2) Terrelle Pryor threw three touchdowns to go along with two interceptions and had nice numbers,but both of his interceptions came on short passing plays.
Pryor has an odd hitch in his mechanics that he doesn't have on longer passes.I have a hard time describing it,but to me,the best way is imagine running water on your hand and then flicking excess onto something or someone.That is what it reminds me of and it costs him accuracy.
Correcting that could go a long way for Pryor's future...

3) Underrated play of the day?
Jordan Hall's carefully looked at bounce of the Purdue opening kickoff that he watched the entire way,made sure no flying Boilermaker would recover and allowed the kick to slightly skitter out of bounds.
Right off,the bat the Buckeyes had good field position at the forty and the stage was set for a beating.

4) Dane Sanzenbacher and Devier Posey each grabbed four passes and a touchdown for the day,but the prettiest play was the Sanzenbacher 56 yard gain that didn't result in a score on the play.
If Sanzenbacher can open things up a little more for Posey,things will become much easier on the offense...

5) The 49 point win was the largest ever for Ohio State over Purdue.
Not that Purdue is like Indiana or anything,but I was mildly surprised at that stat.

6) For those of you that wonder what the Big Ten tiebreaking procedures are,click here.
Michigan State's comeback win over Northwestern cleaned things up a bit as had the Wildcats hung onto their upset,the conference could have had five teams with a loss,tiebreakers are still possible.
The game that looms largest is Michigan State at Iowa this weekend. A Spartan win and they look strong to win the conference outright with three games to go that are not especially tough (home vs Minnesota and Purdue and at Penn State).
An Iowa win means chaos as four teams could have one loss as Wisconsin and Purdue play this Saturday,knocking one of them out.

7) I really have liked the play of Andrew Sweat at the linebacker position.
Since the injury to Ross Homan,Sweat has filled the spot nicely and looks to me to be just as a strong a player as Homan-who is very good.

8) Purdue runs the zone-read option now with Danny Hope after years of airing it out under Joe Tiller.I would have thought that Purdue would have stuck with what worked,but in any case OSU shut the running game now entirely and made freshman QB Rob Henry have to beat them with his arm and that isn't happening.

9) Finally,Terrelle Pryor was offering comments about the Wisconsin game such as these-"Not to take anything away from Wisconsin at all - I really don't want it to come off like this - but they weren't better than us," he said. "Everybody knows that if we play nine out of 10 times, we'd beat Wisconsin."
But it only takes one and the better team on that day won.You want to discuss that game?
Win out and after a Bowl win,let's talk about it.
Until then I don't want to hear it.


Photo Credits-Marvin Fong-Cleveland Plain Dealer