One Guy's Opinion

Well, after a long night (ah, the 'dark night of the soul'), here are some thought regarding the BCS Championship game:

Florida played perfectly. It was a great game, a great scheme, and nothing should take away from that. Chris Leak played like Troy Smith; no turnovers, very smart. Defensively, the coaching staff found a way to pressure the Buckeyes and still cover the receivers. All due respect and congratulations.

That being said, here are a couple of other observations:

1) Ted Ginn must have been a huge part of the game plan. I say this because once he went down (on the TD celebration?), our offense shut down as well.

2) Offensively, we had no clue and seemed to have no desire to find one. The line was losing the battle up front all night; unable to block Florida's front 4 in pass protection, unable to open holes for the running game. For a very good bunch of linemen, this was just awful. It lead to...

3) Coverage excellence: the WRs could not get open against the Gators. This was due, in my opinion, to Florida's willingness and ability to play man/free- coverage on the WRs, and let Reggie Nelson play center field to pick up any loose trash. It's the scheme that UF ran all year, and it was surprising that tOSU wouldn't see it coming. Of course, losing the deep threat of Ginn impacted this some, but still. Because of #3 and #4...

4) Troy Smith looked like Brady Quinn. Actually, to be honest, he looked worse- no rhythm, no "pep", no time to throw the ball. We still love him, but wow.

5) Defensively, I've never seen the "Silver Bullets" so passive in my life. I personally believe that this is just reality catching up with them- they've been able to scheme around weaknesses all year, relying heavily on zone to survive. Shoot, if Michigan could hang 39 on them, I'm surprised that Florida didn't hit triple digits.

6) People have speculated that tOSU was afraid to play man coverage with the speedy recievers of Florida. I think that this is not true- they had no problem going man/man with Texas and Michigan (different, I know, but stay with me here). I believe that the defensive scheme, which included 10 yard cushions for the corners and deep drops for the linebackers, was geared to take away the multiple movements of the Florida spread option offense. The plan seemed to be to not get beat by the big play, which led to getting destroyed by a lot of 7-10 yard passes. If I had a dollar for every third down that Florida converted by dragging a reciever underneath the LBs and just past the yard markers, I could buy a house in Malibu (although I could probably get one cheap this morning).

7) In that vein, the entire world knows that Chris Leak has a history of folding under pressure. So, where was it? They seemingly only rushed 3/4 most of the night, checking out of blitzes over and over again in response to Gator motion or formation changes. Did tOSU not see this coming? Or was Florida's o-line just that good?

8) Oh, and guess what? When Tebow's in, he's going to run the ball. Really. Sure, there was the one pass, but everyone in the SEC knows that this is what he does. Again, we could have had 15 people on the field, though, and still not stopped him- I don't know where our front four was most of the evening.

9) Flat. Flat, flat, flat, flat. I noticed it coming out of the tunnel, I noticed it when Florida drove down and scored their first TD, and I noticed it as soon as they went 3 and out on their first series. Uninspired. It was the unimaginable- a Jim Tressel team giving up midway through the 2nd quarter. Because of that, I agree with the 4th and 1 call- you've got to get some momentum going somehow. But I also think that at this point, the Bucks had stopped playing, which doomed Wells' run from the snap.

This may be what happens when you've had the type of season that Ohio State did- when you win so easily, you forget that great heart and effort are required to do so. I'm not questioning the heart of the players, I'm just reflecting on the 2002 team- they won so many close, come from behind games that they knew how to keep fighting. On January 8, 2007, the Buckeye team did not.

Yesterday, I said that a win would be the icing on an extremely tasty cake. I still feel that way, but right now it's like the icing went bad and I've got food poisoning. After a while, things will get back to normal... but now, it's just ugly. And what makes it worse even than this is that Ohio State was supposed to be there.

I just wish they would have showed up.