A look at how five-stars in the 2022 class are performing:

Our receivers and offense over the past few seasons have been slowed down by "physical" and "sticky" corners. Aka corners that are holding that the refs aren't / can't call every play. We saw it all the time with Joey Porter Jr. Notre Dame did it this year and last year. Michigan has done it. Play a zone with press corners to cover the deep ball and slow our receivers down.

So what can we do to help our best players in Marv and Egbuka get free releases? Well maybe more pre-snap motion like the Dolphins? Tyreek Hill is the extreme example given he is a once in a lifetime type player, but moving a guy like Egbuka around like this pre-snap might open up a lot, not just with DBs, but also LBs which I have read could open up running lanes.

Idk, just random thoughts on a Monday going into the Bye week. Posted a link below on examples which most have already probably seen but just got me thinking.

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STAMFORD, Conn. – Sept. 25, 2023 – NBC Sports drew its largest regular-season college football audience in 30 years for No. 6 Ohio State’s down-to-the-wire 17-14 win over No. 9 Notre Dame, with a touchdown in the closing seconds on Saturday night.

1.Columbus, OH29.9/65
2.Cleveland21.1/54
3.Cincinnati12.8/33
4.Indianapolis11.6/33
5.Detroit11.0/32
6.Chicago7.0/24
7.West Palm Beach6.6/19
8.Tampa6.2/19
T9.Nashville6.1/18
T9.Norfolk6.1/17

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">NBC Sports Registers its Largest Audience for Regular-Season College Football in 30 YEARS with Saturday’s <a href="https://twitter.com/OhioStateFB?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">@OhioStateFB</a><br> vs. <a href="https://twitter.com/NDFootball?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">@NDFootball</a> <br><br>More: <a href="https://t.co/PvprPY5aS2">https://t.co/PvprPY5aS2</a> <a href="https://t.co/sMrJzGGWE2">pic.twitter.com/sMrJzGGWE2</a></p>&mdash; NBC Sports PR (@NBCSportsPR) <a href=" Login to view embedded media ">September 25, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Hate to use the buzzword parody, but that's what I see.

I think we'll beat Notre Dame and scUM, but lose to PSU. They pretty much have 3 weeks to prep for us after they beat Iowa tonight (bye, NW, then us).

I think scUM beats PSU, but loses to us. Just my opinion obviously. It's early in the season and hopefully I'm wrong.

I see Rivals has us at #1 on points with just 22 guys. I’m sure we will take 2-3 more. (Or do we bank them for the transfer portal?)

Regardless, I saw the big OL committed to Texas. Who else are we targeting to try and finish the class?

The first dude Doug talks about is a million times worse than anything we said in the game thread here... 🤣 🤣 🤣

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Hey Buckeye Nayshuun sheck out this live schtream to show the haterz n moronz who wuz right.

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A look at the five-stars in the 2023 class right here:

Athletic reporting Baker committed to Texas tonight 🫠

Don't take this wrong. Ohio State beat Notre Dame in hostile territory and we have a lot to be proud of and to celebrate.
But, did our best, most elite players perform like we expected them to play? Should we expect more from them on the biggest stages? Sure, Notre Dame played a great game and had plans to neutralize the Buckeye stars.
Why did it take so long for Buckeye Nation to see Marvin Harrison, JTT, Tommy Eichenberg, Steele Chambers and Jack Sawyer standout? Those superstars have to be unstoppable in those big games....make big plays regardless of the bright lights.
On the other side, Denzel Burke was hardly mentioned because he shutdown his area. Emeka Egbuka did his job, TreVeyon Henderson ran hard and made the big run in the third quarter, Kyle McCord avoided "the big mistake", Cade Stover made plays and Lathan Ransom was all over the field. There were other guys who showed up, like Xavier Johnson.
In upcoming games against Maryland, Penn State and Michigan, those elite players need to "take over the game" if the Bucks are to reach their full potential.
Again, we are thrilled they beat a motivated Notre Dame team, but Penn State and Michigan will be as motivated and our biggest stars need to shine....dominate.

Having been watching what NFL teams do in short yardage. Seems like very few just line up and hand the ball to the tailback. Defenses are just too good at getting some penetration. I think this whole idea of toughness is misdirected. Almost all of the teams are using some form of misdirection to get even a couple of yards. The most popular one I saw today was to fake a handoff laterally then shovel pass it forward That was successful by a few teams today. I love that we won with Chip going up the middle but we were only going up against 10 players. Hopefully we use the bye week to install some better short yardage plays. And if it is just a foot then we can hopefully install a qb run with chip pushing from behind.

I blame @shwilson224 for using the same subject line last week to talk about Marv’s ankle issues from last year 😬

But here we are again as that looked bad. I know he came back, just wonder how long this will linger.

When the Buckeyes have a great offense, like last season, the defense is less than average...has weaknesses that good teams exploit.
Now, this season, the defense could be great, elite, and the offense has questions, like a new quarterback and an offensive line that might be substandard by Ohio State standards.
For several years, the offense scored an average of 45 points a game (and still took its foot off the gas many games). The defense had trouble stopping competent opponents.
Imagine a season with both an elite offense and an elite defense?

Was it all a practical joke?

There has been a lot of angst about the OL recruiting and development under Stud, which has led OSU to where they are with the line. I completely agree with the criticism. But, it seems like the TE recruiting and development under Wilson was equally shaky and may be responsible for a lot of the current run game issues. Last year they had a converted LB and a walk-on as the top 2 guys. This year, that same converted LB along with a converted WR are the top two. The overall numbers that they brought in over the years do not seem to line up with how important the position seems to be in the offense that Day likes to run. They use a TE on basically every play and more often two than one. But they recruit like they run 4 and 5 WR sets. This is what they brought in since Day took over the job: 2019 - one (Cormantae Hamilton), 2020 - one (Royer plus Scott as a WR), 2021 - one (Sam Hart), 2022 - one (Christian), 2023 - one (Thurman). Only one of the TEs that were recruited as such plays at all and he is currently 3rd on the depth chart.

Now I'm excited about the early buzz around Thurman, but that just doesn't seem like near enough players and the development is not there for some (e.g. Hamilton converted to DE). This has really hampered the outside zone run game that OSU likes because there are no real inline TEs in the system from what I have seen. Having a TE as a receiving threat is exciting and I think that will be more the norm with Bailey in charge, but the blocking aspect seems to be overlooked and just maybe Wilson should get as much grief as Stud for some of that.

Getting this one going early. I’ve got Ohio State by a score of 37-23. Quite jealous of those of you who will be in attendance.

Fun with the AP Poll.

John Pierson dropped Ohio State from 6 to 7 after beating ND.

Brett McButtmunch jumped them from 9 to 4.

Matt Baker has them at #1.

Totally bizarre how replay can cause a correct call to get reversed. The only justification I can think of is they didn’t look at the angle they showed later which clearly showed he had control with his foot down. But there was no angle that showed he didn’t have control so why reverse it? There were plenty of other bad calls like Igbinosin with a blatant pass interference that wasn’t called. I just don’t get using replay and making a worse call.

Lots of pausing,

Ryan Day said that on his radio show on Thursday.

Do you believe him?

… is reading the game day thread for the first time. Gold - pure gold.

It’s a page turner 😂