I guess it's time to move on...

I've been putting off a recap of the Ohio St-USC game for obvious reasons. But I suppose I have an obligation to at least form some sort of analysis.

Ouch. How's that for an analysis? The Bucks actually got off to a decent start, and took the lead on a Pretorius field goal with about 3 min left in the first. Defensive struggles usually help the underdog, so I was getting more and more optimistic during those first 12 min of game play. Unfortunately, the next 48 min ended all hopes of optimism for the rest of the season.

SC ended the first quarter on Sanchez's first of a dozen TD tosses in the game. The second quarter started the same way as the first ended, Maualuga had a pick six, we couldn't move the ball, yada yada yada. The SoCo shots started flowing in the third quarter in an attempt to drown my sorrow, and the rest of the game was thankfully kinda cloudy. Onto the individual performances that we're all trying to forget...

Todd Boeckman looked...how do I put this delicately...awful? terrible? embarrassing? I think I'll go with embarrassing. 14/21, 84 yards, 0 TD's, 2 INT's. Again I say, ouch. For the second consecutive week Brian's Robiskie and Hartline seemed invisible. I don't know if they're not getting open, QB's aren't looking their way (doubtful), or maybe a little bit of both. But either way, they need to start combining for more than 6 catches per game.

No surprises here: the running game was non-existent without Chris Wells. Herron rushed for 51 yards, Saine for 10, and Mo Wells for a whopping -2. Why isn't Brandon Saine getting more touches? He must be in Tressel's dog house or something. Saine showed a lot of explosiveness last season; 2 carries and 1 reception is certainly not enough action for this guy.

If you looked really hard, ignored the scoreboard, and then looked even harder, you may have seen a glimpse of a bright spot in this game. Not surprisingly, it was Terrelle Pryor. He went 7/9 for 52 yards and carried the ball 11 times for 40 yards. No, these stats are certainly not jaw-dropping, but if you watched him you had to be impressed. Nick sent me a text during the game describing TP as "smooth." I thought that was a really good adjective. He doesn't seem to run hard, it's just like he's gliding. Very reminiscent of a guy some Buckeye fans may remember, Ted Ginn. (Please do yourself a favor and watch this clip. Some of his moves are unreal. I watch this literally two or three times a week.) I'm still a Todd Boeckman supporter (although not as much after this performance) but I definitely do agree that Pryor needs his snaps. I would still like to see him in the backfield with Boeckman or in the slot, but Tressel seems reluctant to open up the playbook.

Enough about this game, it's time to move on. The dream of another National Championship appearance is over (possibly not a bad thing). Now it's time to set our sights on winning the Big Ten and heading to Pasadena. As bad as we looked, this is still a very reasonable goal. The Big Ten looks pretty week, and if Wells ever comes back this is still a very stacked team.

Next up is the Troy Trojans of the mighty Sunbelt conference (Noon, Big Ten Network). This should be one last tune up before conference play starts, but then again that's what I thought about Ohio. Wells has been ruled out yet again. Tressel said that TP will get 50% of the snaps, but a starter has not yet been named.

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