bicranium

FYI, according to Vegas, none of the picks you made would be upsets. Ole Miss, VT and USC are all favored in those games. Ole Miss and Virginia Tech don't surprise me as A&M hasn't done anything impressive yet this season and Virginia Tech is finally getting Brewer back. USC being favored is very interesting to me. They just fired their HC, they've lost some games, it's not like the Coliseum is an intimidating environment, especially when USC isn't elite. Vegas isn't stupid though. And since you made all the same picks they did neither are you...haha.

Only game between ranked opponents this weekend is A&M @ Ole Miss. I could see Tulsa taking out Memphis tonight though.

And this "Rutgers trailer" that OSU put out is more or less a highlight video from the PSU game. Pretty cool locker room stuff showing JT and Raekwon firing the team up. JT's leadership ability is a huge reason I thought he should have been the starter from day one. He was giving pre-game speeches for the B1G title game and playoff semifinal even though he wasn't playing and was on his little scooter. Just a natural leader.

Yeah, Gibson pretty much quit the team last week but was able to be reeled back in. Academic stuff he's not living up to as well as the injury keeping him from early playing time he wanted after switching positions (at least temporarily) led to him reaching his tipping point. And Webb's suspension I believe has been termed as "violation of team rules" or some other nondescript phrasing.

So glad John Williams is still around to score these movies. The music is just as incredible as ever in the trailer. Music alone can absolutely make or break a movie and that's one thing that they just don't have to worry about whatsoever with Williams.

Cardale had very few called runs aside from sneaks in the post-season under Herman. He actually had the best rushing game of his career in this season's opener vs. VT. Straight speed options to the outside with Zeke or Braxton as the pitch man and VT forced Cardale to keep it all night and they paid for it to the tune of 13 carries for 99 yards. As for the long passes, remember they were long passes down the sideline. Less risk. And Devin Smith's ability to adjust to poorly thrown balls and go up and get them helped too.

Yeah, I mean, after Cardale's worst game that almost resulted in a loss to a MAC team Urban committed 100% to him and let him play through some struggles. Played OK against WMU (100th in total defense) and it calmed things down a bit. Then they play Indiana (119th in total defense) and without Zeke busting those long runs that's a loss. Back to the drawing board. They come up with JT in the red zone, Cardale everywhere else and it worked well against Maryland (111th in total defense). Then you face Penn State (16th in total defense) and the team can't do anything with Cardale as the QB so they give the whole field to JT and pull away. They gave Cardale half the season. They probably cost JT another legitimate Heisman campaign. Who knows how many more yards and TD's guys like Zeke, Michael Thomas, Jalin Marshall and Braxton Miller would have if JT was out there distributing the ball to athletes in space instead of trying to run some wannabe pro system with a guy it was obvious they didn't trust throwing the ball over the middle of the field and really only 1 true WR. In the end, as I already said, I'm just glad the whole situation didn't end up truly hurting the team by waiting for a loss to make the switch. This QB thing worried me the whole off-season because you go with the wrong guy or the team creates factions and you've got a real problem. I think they did go with the wrong guy but the team, Cardale and JT included, has handled it pretty well thus far. We'll see now that there's been a real switch if Cardale can stay as positive as JT did as he sat on the sidelines.

His interactions with May at the press conferences are always great. And you nailed it with Birm. He's exactly who I had in mind when I gave that description of "legitimate writers who work under their real names."

I'm sure people at 11w knew but just didn't post it. A shitty "insider" on Rivals posted it this morning but he hasn't had much info since Urban showed up (Urban seems to favor "inside" info going to legitimate writers who work under their real names than spoiled, rich children of boosters who operate anonymously) so I actually almost thought Urban was going to stick with Cardale once I saw that turd posted it...haha. I'm just glad it didn't take a loss for the change to occur.

OSU took back a first place vote from Baylor but people are more consistently voting Baylor at 2 and 3. They did close in a bit... OSU was ahead by 21 points last week, only 12 this week. The whole thing with Baylor right now is that they've beaten everyone pretty much as expected. They've played just one defense ranked in the top 100 but even in the games where OSU has played defenses ranked outside of the top 100 they haven't beaten them like Baylor has been beating their cupcakes. It's not a huge issue though since everything will sort itself out as the season goes on. Baylor and OSU's schedules are both loaded on the back end. Baylor finishes the season vs. 3 currently ranked opponents and Texas. OSU will also face 3 currently ranked opponents to close out the season if they make it to the B1G title game.

ESPN Stats & Info's twitter posted this after the game tonight... Ohio State tonight by QB: J.T. Barrett: 32 plays, 270 yards, 5 TD Cardale Jones: 34 plays, 141 yards, 0 TD I feel bad for Cardale that he came back and that he lost a nice chunk of change because of it but it is what it is. If OSU wants another shot at the title they need to get behind JT and hope he doesn't go down with another injury because the Cardale show isn't going to fool anyone this year.

It's just a mock up done by someone on 11 Warriors. I imagine the real thing will look pretty good. Also, Ole Miss is about to go down to Memphis. I think a lot of people were looking to this one ever since Ole Miss lost the way they did @ Florida and it's happening.

Haha... now they're not even going to be using the green leaves with the black helmets.

I really think they may be able to pull off a bit of the black out. I thought it was going to look silly because too many people were just going to wear their usual scarlet/gray stuff but everyone seems to be talking about it. I believe the jerseys have the reflective borders around the numbers like the more common alternates do (the ones with the green stickers a certain someone absolutely LOVES). There's potential for a really, really cool shot of the team coming out of the tunnel in the dark with some light hitting the jerseys just right.

I know there was some talk of the talent on this Ohio State team in the last thread (just to reiterate - elite talent =/= elite team - at least until they put it all together) so this is worth posting... Chris Spielman (brother is Vikings' GM) said a week or so ago that OSU has I think 17 juniors and seniors that the NFL evaluates on a weekly basis. He has done a couple Michigan games already this season (and is doing Michigan-MSU this weekend) and said they have 6 or 7. Just more reason for me to get irrationally upset if this team ultimately fails to put it all together.

They're the early candidate to be the 2015 version of 2014 Ohio State.

It's nothing like when Braxton takes the wildcat. JT hasn't had any injuries related to throwing. Teams know he can still throw just as well as he did last season. He would have had another TD pass to Thomas in the red zone on Saturday had Maryland not committed PI. It's just the main reason JT is being inserted in the red zone is to run the read option because Cardale sucks at it.

BTW BTN's The Journey started back up last night. Wasn't much OSU-related in the first episode, just some brief mentions with regards to both MSU and OSU trying to live up to expectations and maintain their high rankings. Still a great show. I'd imagine the two featured games next week will be Michigan/MSU and OSU/PSU. Also, BTN premiered the BTN Elite episode for the 2014 Buckeyes last night. I was trying to get to sleep around 4AM after watching The Journey and at the end of that I saw the start of the BTN Elite I had recorded as well. Ended up staying up until 4:45AM watching all of that like an idiot.

After the Indiana game I was telling all my buddies that I thought PSU would take OSU out. And we'd never see the black jerseys ever again. After the Maryland game I'm slightly more optimistic but still think it's a very real possibility. The JT red zone QB project looked great against Maryland (6/6 for TD's in the red zone, no turnovers) but they're 111th in total defense and 104th in scoring defense. PSU is 10th in total defense and 11th in scoring defense - the best defense OSU has faced on paper. The good news is that there is virtually 0 threat of QB run from Hackenberg and that is what has thrown the OSU defense off the past 2 games. If OSU can just get 27-28 points on the board I think it's a W.

The only true RB in this class has always been Walker. And if/when he's gone he'll be replaced almost immediately by Williams.

Go

Pretty funny that OSU more or less got rid of Brian Bobek for being undersized/not being able to add weight then ended up starting Boren at center on their way to a national title. Also, looking at the OSU depth chart for PSU... OSU cannot afford another loss at DB. Walk-on Jarrod Barnes is currently listed as Vonn Bell's backup. Webb's suspended indefinitely, Burrows is out for the year with his foot thing and Erick Smith is dinged up now too.

I'm continually shocked when reading football forums at how many people still don't understand just how big the mental part of the game is.

Obviously. All I'm saying is they got up for what was perceived as their big game and handled it. At the time it was one of the bigger early season matchups of the last several years. That does have an effect on the players - on both sides.