Ace_Rothstein

On at least one of the plays OP says the curl is “wide open”, the play isn’t that open. In real time I think the defender is passing off the guy he is on to the safety and about to break hard at the guy curling “open” if Arch turns his head and body towards the curl. Screenshots can be deceiving. Sure, there are some that you’d like Arch to plant his back foot on his drop and let it rip with more anticipation, but some of these are reaches.

Yes. Can they stop letting Tyler Allgier (solid player in his own right) rack up tds on drives where Bijan does all the work to get them inside the 10. I understand wanting to keep Bijan fresh, but it’s annoying how he doesn’t get the King Henry, Jonathan Taylor and Josh Jacobs layups around the goal line despite him clearly being a superb goal line runner. If healthy, his usage should warrant 2000+ scrimmage yards and 20+ tds every year for the next 5ish seasons.

Riley sucks and probably screwed up today by throwing to the endzone to take the lead with 1:55 still left. That said, USC looks much improved on offense (their offense was actually the problem last year) and while the defensive backs are bad outside of Kamari Ramsey who didn’t play today, their defense forces turnovers and their pass rush is legit. The defense took a step back overall from last year but it won’t be felt because they can get to the quarterback and make splash turnover plays. USC will likely be a 9ish win team. Sure, they could choke and go like 8-5 but I think they’ll be 9-4 or 10-3. Maiava, Lemon, Lane and Jordan are legit and the OL is really good. My point is that Riley isn’t getting fired unless they lose 5+ games with a couple of embarrassing performances.

Not arguing against you there. Just saying that he has put some good tape out there and I think his NFL prospects are better than what you initially suggested. He’s rising up draft boards.

obviously fake but hilarious. Would be a HIPPA violation if real which it is not.

especially a thumb.

He’s a lot better than you’re giving him credit for. Have to go look at the Cal tape for more big time throws. Handles pressure well.

Yeah totally agree. The A&M game actually proves your point more than it proves Gerry’s in this case.

As a guy that was high on Zachariah Branch coming out of HS, he got passed over at USC for a reason. If anything Riley should have just benched him sooner. Makai Lemon is an absolute dawg and just a way better, and more complete WR. Same goes for Jakobi Lane. Riley’s offense is relatively simple and Branch was having trouble running the correct routes, catching the ball in key moments etc. Are we sure we really wanted to throw a boat load of cash at a guy that doesn’t profile as a polished, refined WR? i get this thread is talking about Zion, but i think it’s all related and relevant since they were a package deal.

Also a lot of Buckeye fans keep parroting “we were in prevent defense” the entire 4th quarter but that’s not what the tape says on the 4-5 dots Arch threw in the 4th. Each one was either a 1 on 1 win by the receiver or Arch fitting it into to a window or throwing it into a spot. The Livingstone td catch, Endries hole shot (shown in the video above), the Wingo seam route and the dropped td pass to Livingstone on 4th and goal (would have been a tough catch) were all dots.

You guys still had significantly less yardage going into the 4th and couldn’t move the ball on Texas. Both offenses struggled. Where are you getting the Texas is lucky it didn’t lose 21-0 narrative from? Credit to Ohio State but it squeezed out every point it possibly could. It had 2 drives cross the 50 and punched it in on 4th and goal from the one after getting stuffed the 3 previous plays. Ohio State only had 2 opportunities to score points and it did so twice (once because of 2 penalties extending drives). Texas had like 4 opportunities to actually get points and only scored once (one was a drop in the endzone). This isn’t me trying to discredit Ohio State, but your use of “domination” goes both ways as in the defenses dominated the offenses. It was a 14-7 game buddy with Texas at mid field with about 1 min to go. Not sure why it is hard for you to just admit that it was a close game ha.

This is a bit revisionist and somewhat delusional. Ohio state was essentially losing the yardage battle etc all game. You guys crossed the 50 yard line like twice and penalties significantly aided your first td drive. This game was decided on like 3 or 4 plays that went Ohio State’s way. Mainly coming down to Texas going 0/2 in the redzone and Ohio State going 1 for 1. Acting like Texas was putting up empty calorie garbage time yardage is disingenuous. Acting like this was anything but an ugly hard fought game between 2 relatively even matched teams is delusional. And your other comment about Saying being better than Arch already is way too premature lol. If you know ball, you know one off results and head to head matchups don’t provide full context especially when one QB is on start 3 and another is on start 1 (it was Arch’s first road start in a hostile environment). Using your logic, that would be like me saying Michigan’s QB last year was already better than Will Howard haha. Arch didn’t have a good game. No sugarcoating it. He isn’t automatically a bust now because of it. He will have down games his 1st year starting.

A bit premature on all this doom and gloom. Let’s revisit after Oklahoma. That gives us 3 cupcakes, 1 road test and 1 neutral site rivalry game to see where Arch is at. The two best teams in the country may have just played each other yesterday and I think Arch will get better.

Texas has one of the fastest teams in the country. We have at least 6-7 skill players on offense that will run sub 4.5 when they eventually hit the combine over the next 2-3 draft cycles

I mean, OSU was pretty ineffective offensively. It’s not like they were dialed in and creating explosive plays. Texas actually moved the ball more consistently. Ohio State capitalized on 2 drives (1 off a turnover and 1 extended by penalty).