OT: OSU First Spring Practice
Reports of viewers salivating over all the infused talent in CBus during their first Spring Practice. As if on field talent has been their problem the last 3 years.
Video links included.
First impressions from Ohio State football’s first spring practice (msn.com)
NOVEMBER 30th. Had to make sure I wasn’t missing a seismic schedule change after reading this!
Thanks, corrected…
It’s not us it’s them.
The counter argument is that our OL has become Wisconsinesque in having excellent 2-3 year backups waiting to start and the RB room is loaded with talent. QB is obviously another matter unless someone is quietly making a huge leap.
Ohio State is ALWAYS a concern. There hasn't been an OSU game in my life that I wasn't nervous about (I became football sentient in 1969). I have confidence that our run game and defense are good enough to beat them but if we're too one dimensional on offense, gonna be a difficult task.
They told themselves they are tougher now
I wonder where Lou Holtz is right now.
We should make Lou Holtz honorary captain for next years game.
thufferin' thuckatash, that'd be thavage!!
None of their personnel moves wow me. Its not clear theyve upgraded at QB and thats the main cog in Days program. OSUs talent level is more or less the same as it was in 21 22 and 23
Ill more be interested to see if Chip Kelly actually shows 3rd Base how to run the ball and run his QB because that would be a dangerous development
Might be an even bigger problem this year with a running quarterback. That's huge! That will actually be running in the fourth quarter.
Downs is the only transfer that really moves the needle for me.
How can you tell anything from one spring practice?
John Cooper in attendance.. How fitting
Good for them. They still have to spend the next eight months stewing over the last three years and wondering how a supposedly inferior program with inferior talent and inferior coaching has managed to get the best of them AND win it all.
Pressure is squarely on their shoulders and their shoulders alone to win next year. If they can't win at home with their bought and paid for super-team, with all those guys coming back, Ryan Day and his entire staff....none of them make it back to the locker room without being fired. And they all know it. I hope and pray that Day tries to outsmart everyone and himself by starting Seth McLaughlin at center. Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant would be licking their chops all November.
I'm not naive enough to think OSU can't win next year. They absolutely can. I just don't know what OSU has done this year to address the actual problems Michigan has given them besides just going all A&M on the situation, throwing as much money as they can at their problems and hoping that fixes things.
I keep asking at which position will they be better next year? Incremental at the positions where people stayed, ok. QB? I don't see it. WR, big step down. TE? OL, the incremental improvements can be a bigger deal there, so maybe. Defensively, unless the young guys moving from safety to LB are an improvement, the rest is the same.
Certainly, they have young talent where someone will pop. Their best hope is that staying the same will be good enough, which may be true.
Overall, their WR core will be better. Innis Tate egbuka will have higher upside than their previous seasons even with MHJ. Not evening the fact about Smith coming in. TE got a little bit better with the OU (NTOU) TE but UM still is vastly better. Same with OL.
No. MHJ is a generational talent that changed the course of games all on his own. Maybe they will develop that, but there is no obvious heir, nor is it likely. And, MHJ = 0-3 against UM, because senior leadership is what decides The Game and OSU hasn't shown that. They've sent us a pouty QB x 2, and their most recent sacrificial lamb quit the team.
Their WR core will be better because their #2 and #4 receivers will be incrementally better....and they lost their #1 and #3? Even if Smith is the best FR receiver ever and Tate makes a big jump, which seems likely, their overall receiver core is not better.
And, no, their TE position didn't improve. It may be close to even (I doubt it), but I don't see that improving either. That's kind of my point.
The other side of that is at what position will we better next year? QB, WR, RB, and OL - No and most likely a big step down. We lost all of our depth on defense and need another corner and a nickel. Not to mention losing an elite Head Coach and most of his staff. Oh and our schedule is one of the toughest in the country. If we still had Harbaugh and staff, I would say 10-2 next year. Under Moore and his staff? We’ll see.
The one thing OSU did was hire Chip Kelly as OC. If they can run the ball and run the QB a lot better then that will be a big move. If theyre still just a 7 on 7 drill program then nothing much has changed
The team presented "tough guy" Ryan with a Lou Holtz piñata stuffed with men's hygiene products.
This made me laugh.
Where did you read that it was men's?
Technically it was "Just for Men"
I don't know if there has ever been a team/coach under more pressure to win a single game than OSU/Ryan Day will face on November 30th.
Somewhat easing that pressure is a chance in the CFB tournamant. So really the pressure on both teams will be alleviated somewhat unless one of the teams has 2 or more losses.
Very true. Seems like the SEC and B10 are pushing for a 12 or 16 team playoff where each conference is guaranteed 4 spots which would definitely minimize the importance of a singular regular season game.
If both teams are 8-0, maybe the pressure will be to win the game on December 7. You know, when they play back-to-back weeks. Of course, the real pressure will be to win the game on January 10, 2025, when the teams meet in the Orange Bowl in the Semifinals.
Ugh, I hate what college football is becoming.
I think it's all or nothing for them now that UM has won it all. They didn't spend all that money just to win the conference title
Harbaugh against OSU in 2021 was pretty close. He did say they would win or die trying, Thankfully they won and it was the Buckeyes who died crying…I mean trying.
Off season national champs 120yrs running
Damn they look tough. So scared /s
In their minds they HAVE to win the national championship this year. They look at recruiting stars and how much they spent - but they don’t have the team Michigan had last year. They will not win the national championship.
Exactly. With how much money they spent on getting this super-team, with how much NIL money they must've thrown at their current roster to get them to stay for this one last go-around, this is Ryan Day's "pushing the chips to the middle of the table" moment, because he will be losing a lot of production at the end of next season.
He's whiffed on beating Michigan three years in a row, when OSU had known nothing but beating Michigan for the better part of 20 years. Those results denied OSU a spot in the playoff two of those three years, and now they just had to watch a Michigan team with maybe half the recruiting stars they have go and win it all, when they couldn't even beat the fourth or fifth best team in the SEC. Its abject humiliation for them, when they were so sure that their calculated PR plan over Sign-Gate was going to destroy Michigan's season.
Ryan Day has undoubtedly been given an ultimatum. Next year is absolutely national title or bust. Do I think he'll be fired if he wins every game except the national title game? Probably not. But if he loses to Michigan again? In that situation, short of winning it all, he's gone.
Did they enlarge the player parking lot for all the new Lambo’s
I'm not sure if they enlarged the lot - but, rumor has it that the Ohio Lamborghini dealership has opened a satellite location next to the WHAC - Woody Hayes Athletic Center. This will make completing oil changes, regular maintenance, and detailing - a much easier and less time consuming process. And, it will also enable those enrolled in online classes to not leave the comfort of their dorm room / condo.
One thing, that I haven't seen mentioned much about our recent wins and how much it utterly is destroying their fanbase's confidence... is the fact that we have beaten them 3 years in a row in top 3 matchups. Every year, everything has been on the line, and every year we won.
They beat up on RR and Hoke.. BFD. Yes, it sucked, but mots of those entire seasons sucked. There were a few decent years in there, but we were terrible.
These were, on paper (tissue soft paper), some of the most talented teams OSU has ever had..and we beat the snot out of the 2x and beat them a 3rd.
This, more than just the winning, is what must drive them insane. We eliminated them from contention in 2 years, and took them from the epic top to the "3 points against mizzou" in just 3 hrs.
As for them starting pracitce, don't care. Moore... its time to go to work! Get the boys ready for next season. CANT WAIT.
To be fair, OSU didn't really have a problem vs. U-M when it was "Urban vs JH."
They definitely did have a problem vs U-M when it was "Ryan Day vs JH."
Coaching matters quite a lot. It's a different chapter, yet again, starting in 2024.
Good point. On the subject of coaching, if we're going to be thorough here, OSU didn't have much trouble when it was Tressel vs. Carr, either. (No, the games weren't blowouts, but the record doesn't lie, either.)
It's strange. Post WW-2, the U-M/OSU series is fairly close to .500 overall.
But the last 4 OSU HC (not counting Fickell) are ALL either below 25% or over 75% in their win rate vs. Michigan. 3 of those 4 coaches coached 7+ games vs. U-M, so pretty decent sample size.
Michigan, meanwhile, has had 7 coaches in the post-WW2 era who have coached 5+ games versus OSU. All but 1 (Fritz Crisler, and even then the WW2 era arguably skewed his 7-2-1 record, it was a different strucutral environment during the war years) of them are higher than 25% and lower than 75%.
OSU coaches are more at the extremes, U-M coaches are more in the middle.
Yes, correct, but it's the one thing that hasn't changed. For as much as people think Urban ran a run and gun system on offense they completely miss the fact that Urban ran a run-first system based on... toughness.
Absolutely right on Urban.
Folks here (naturally) highlight the U-M/OSU games, but even recent PSU/OSU games. OSU has kept on winning at the same rate (vs PSU) under Day as they did under Urban, but OSU plays differently, more finesse, under Day than Urban.
I'm a traditionalist but last year marked the end of "do or die" for "The Game" for me. It's sad but that's reality. With the new set up it may not even make sense to play them the last week of the regular season.
Both UM and OSU, along with Oregon on paper right now seem likely to make the new tournament and then it's a combination of luck, staying healthy, running the ball, and playing good defense. We may go to 16 teams and then throw in PSU as well. Stuff happens . We'll see.
Still enjoying very much being the reigning NC and like the staff Moore has assembled and who we have coming back.
Best RB duo in the nation? Brother you wont have the best RB duo in the division
Or - at least used to be the "East" Division of the B1G. Don't forget - the conference is going "division-less" this season.
I still havent accepted that this league has more than 11 teams
They obsess about us...it's always been that way...they're an extremely small part of my football life....until they get better at football that's not changing...after Missouri they need to prove they can get a 1st down before ill spend 1 second worrying about them
Sorry, not trying to be rude just being honest Ohio State is no longer on Michigan's level.
Sorry, not trying to be rude just being honest Ohio State is no longer on Michigan's level.
At the moment, maybe not. But let's not act like they did and just assume they will never catch up. They are loaded with elite talent and basically beat everyone but Michigan the past few years. Missouri was an extreme outlier as far as I am concerned. They will be a locked in team come November and I'm not so sure we should count that as an automatic W given all we've lost this offseason (to the NFL).
OSU may have trouble at QB this year.
McCord would have been the starter and I’m not sure they have anyone that will play to his level this year.
On top of that, the reason why they got beat by Missouri is because they had no O-Line. OSU is willing to convince themselves of anything, but I don't believe they have a lot of different players coming in from what they had on their roster from last year when it comes to this position group. Unless they are hoping the guy that most Alabama fans feel lost them the Rose Bowl is their O-Line savior. National Championships are won in the trenches. OSU will be loaded with talent, but I am still not impressed with what they are bringing to every game this year in the trenches.