Here for the Wins

If people don’t block, you will lose yards occasionally. You may even adjust your game by virtue of that.

Don’t drink too much. Barry Sanders does not rush for a million yards at OSU and Detroit unless he knows how to hit the hole.

I’d be curious to see any analysis that proves or even slightly substantiates that depth wins over the starters. For example, the OSU had 10 starters on defense that logged 65% or more of their defensive snaps. They undoubtedly had some missed time for injuries and most definitely some garbage time snaps. Offensively, they have 7 guys. That doesn’t includes Simmons and McLaughlin, lost to season ending injuries, or their replacements. Now, you have the TE and two highly drafted RBs who were not included. I would wager that non-garbage time plays has little usage of backups. Texas is a bit different and this year may prove differently. Injuries are the largest factor in the depth chart coming into play, and beyond one or two guys going out it is very difficult to overcome multiple injuries. Ohio State had two once the season started but were buoyed by tons of game experience.

You’ve been fairly well spoiled at many positions. And with that you have many guys that look as good because of their surroundings when only 10% of your opponents can match you physically.

Consider yourself lucky. Back then I wanted to gain but couldn’t. Now it’s completely the opposite.

Point taken. But again your best guy was not a second unit guy. Neither was your other tackle. I’m not certain why we played a guy at less 100%, but it bit us in the end. You previously referenced out playing our Oline. That likely played a part. The screen pass was good execution on your part, poor recognition on ours more so than our play call. Then our attempt at tackle was poor and took out a secondary tackler.

Ok. You won in spite of one guy.

I tend to agree. Sark has gone 4-wide with a TE as part of that. We will see how Endries fits in with that. Based on what I’ve seen earlier, at least last year, yall go to Man defense more than we do. I previously mentioned our variability. I think that’s our approach to coverage - mix it up and allow flexibility. So is Burke national championship caliber or not? He won one so he must be. But it’s almost like are saying he’s not good enough or not OSU good.

They’d probably get them both on the field.

Yes, the injured guy at RT. Horrible play call? What did we call? Point being, the two most impactful plays of the game leading to your victory were score with limited oline impact.

Welcome to Big 10 where 4 wides is not a thing.

Agreed on the first sentence. But dominating is another level of discussion. It looks like you broke off some long runs in those but otherwise pedestrian. The question would arise as to whether a broken tackle happened to create those. Pff is looking at every player on every play. Who won, who lost individual battles. In theory your Oline can do poorly yet you score. But congrats on your Oline for that Sawyer strip sack. I guess they did ok on that Henderson screen.

If you’re like most fans, you don’t focus on the Oline but merely choose to do so on select plays. Domination likely occurs when you’re not looking. Your Tackle was your best guy then the other Tackle was generally more consistent than some of the others. You do realize it is rare to have such highly drafted RBs in the same backfield, right? Maybe helps the Oline. Notre Dame was down maybe their two best DTs. The others weren’t overly talented. Indiana? Come on. There’s a reason Texas was a more difficult game. And again Goosby sat in there with 100,000 Aggies on a line with multiple high draft picks and a former Big 10 badass pass rusher and did fine. But you won’t count that.

Downs has 4 career interceptions and 6 PBUs. His strength is in his all around game. But those numbers are limited and I believe the puck versus us was garbage time.

Those guys did not dominate those teams. Your teams did. If you don’t win it all this year, will your tune change to well maybe it was something else that won it? Again, many Horn fans will tell you that you are fortunate Williams played over Goosby. That might have been enough to enable us to say national champs. That’s how narrow it is.

You’re a fan. I get it. I’m sorta not reliant on practice reports anymore. They’re just all over the board. And I’m more well versed on Ohio State due to your presence. One of the counters to less theoretical talent is experience. And I don’t believe the guys you lost were without talent.

Hutson, Neto, Robertson, Campbell all 4th year in the program. Goosby 3rd year in the program. Hutson has played quite a bit yet I have no idea what to expect. I’m hopeful. Sieve… he played little against us. He’s changed positions, right? You really don’t know what you have. You’re hopeful. Tegra. All signs point to him being mediocre. You’re hopeful he becomes something he hasn’t been. Hinzman, Montgomery. Again hopeful. Montgomery has played as much as Goosby. Both 3rd year guys? Goosby played against some 1st round guys. Started against them. Played the whole time. So why is Montgomery a better example of quality than Goosby? Campbell versus Hinzman. Campbell wins that. Our 5th guy, Neto. Chopped liver. 4th year guy. Top 200 National recruit. Mediocre bloodlines, brother is a DE at Texas. Baker is an unknown but good recruiting chops. The youngest of the bunch. Daniels went to Minnesota. Why? Some experience but young too. New to your program. Presumably played at Minny due to injury. Maybe an advantage you but we really don’t know. I was not comparing position by position but relative experience. You have us on the 4th and 5th guys in experience but otherwise don’t. And there are holes in those guys experience too.

Yes, I’d be surprised. You don’t want to acknowledge the amount of experience you lost on defense. Houston has played 141 snaps, 27 versus an atrocious Purdue. McDonald has 247 snaps. Will Smith has 34. Malone 250. After last year Williams and Hamilton had over 1,600 snaps each. Curry and Jackson around 500 each. That’s decent. Sawyer, JTT had a combined 4,000. Hicks at 226 then Atkinson has two years of good reps. You lose a lot with Simon behind them. But of the 3 groups, this is the most experienced grouping returning. On the back end, Burke, Ransom, Hancock played a ton too. And as best as I can tell, the guys leaving were Ohio State guys that were in the program for the duration. Almost all of whom were logging reps for 3 or 4 years. 3 or 4 years of more reps than Jackson and Curry have been logging in single years. You’ll have some guys hit and probably big, but that’s a lot of truly unknown quantities you are asking to come thru early in the season.

The football world evolves and access is at an all time. Yet it amazes me the narratives that pop up and take off. And admittedly it makes me more cautious regarding this game. I remain confident about the Horns chances. If the players are in that mindset, it’s a good place to be. The confidence on the OSU side comes off as overconfidence. Your defense was the backbone of your team as was ours. OSU lost a ton of reps there and has minimal reps returning at certain spots. Yet the talk comes off as this unit will be ready and raring to go. Nevermind you have a new DC. OSU lost their most veteran receiver but added a TE so that’s somehow an immediate upgrade. Yet we’ll ignore that Texas returns 5 starters out of the back 7. That does not include Williams and McDonald, both with starts and one that was logging significant reps until hurt. And supposedly LeFau is known for his pass coverage ability. Advantage OSU. The OSU Oline is getting significant talk apparently about how good they are. This is based on a team accomplishment. Their most accomplished guy from last year is gone. Both starting tackles are gone to be replaced with a relatively inexperienced, new to the position guy and a transfer with limited experience. We are replacing guys upfront defensively, but they’ve been replaced with a good balance of experience, maturity and variation to match opposing offenses. Advantage OSU. We lose considerable experience offensively but relative to the OSU defensive losses it’s very possible we net out ahead there. Cole Hutson is much like OSUs two most experienced guys. He needs to step up and prove it. Campbell given pedigree, production and the live bullets he’s seen should be considered the top olineman in the game. Goosby has limited but quality game experience. Guys like Robertson and Neto have been here going on 4 years. We lose Golden, Bond and Helm. Two first year st Texas WRs, both less than 100% in last years meeting. Helm was not much of a receiver until he was. Wingo is the best combo of size/speed on our last two teams, and Endries has better numbers than Klare to date. There’s a good chance we’re better at TE this year than last. An underappreciated element here may be the production each team gets from their TEs blocking. Advantage OSU. OSU at RB has a transfer with experience and one dude with little experience. We have two guys with experience albeit one returning from injury. The run games are probably more to do with what happens upfront than any spectacular efforts from the RBs. Do advantage OSU. QB. We shall see, but you’d have to give us the nod. Arch has been around longer and has more live reps. Sounds like his skill set is more varied. Advantage OSU. From a non-Texas fan perspective, there are some elements that may go under the radar. Defensively, we’ve made a concerted effort at certain positions to rotate that are not typical. Safety for one. We rotate pretty well upfront too. Simmons is not a retuning starter. Moore may be a returning starter but is not starting this year. We also present different skillsets and can mix and match our opponents. We are well balanced and an injury or two should be navigated well. Then there is the continuity element although we lost some back-end coaches here. It will come down to who plays closest to their potential. And it could be a drop here, a missed tackle there or an overthrow or perfectly thrown pass that is the final key play. Then the respective winning fans can beat their chests about how right they were in their pregame analysis in the toss-up 3 point game.

I’m not a big NIL/portal fan, but we’re both up there in distributing benefits. From a development/NFL hope, I’m not sure there’s a discernible difference between the programs as they are currently. But playing time helps so that path looked more open here one would think. I think it actually closed more after he signed on but not certain there’s.

Maybe one of these other guys have a good, better answer. All, but 1, of our guys are new to the roster so there was a path to playing time. No idea on money, but we were likely more desperate than yall were.

I think that’s unknown, but we’ll rotate at least 4. Brevard, Shaw, Watson, January. If you get in 3rd and long, you may see a spin down to the interior. Maybe that’s top recruit Terry. Maybe not. Ive conceded that matchup. You’ll dominate.

Great. Is your national championship caliber K back? Because that would scare me. Perhaps change my view.

I understand I’m mixing it up here a bit. Many of the names I rattled off were Ohio State defenders so if those guys were in prominent roles, then I’d expect 3/5 of our Olinemen to be designated as such by the Ohio State contingent. I don’t really care except to the extent that you’re consistent. It was not a comparison of our Oline to yours. Now perhaps your interior Oline played prominent roles in the last month. Fine. But you also lost some pieces of that Oline. You also lost experienced RBs. They had experienced pieces around them in suppport. They’ve got ability sure. I hate to tell you (again it doesn’t really matter), but an independent source grading these dudes says these guys didn’t play quality football but rather their teammates picked them up. They aren’t the same players as last year. There is no reason to believe they’ll be dominant and certainly not against us.

No matter how it turns out your characterization of it all is off base. You lack in honesty and consistency. I get your point. Montgomery and his 300 snaps is different than Goosby and his 300. Hutson and his 1,300 doesn’t matter but Houston’s 140 is insurmountable. Downs can do the work of 3 safeties. Your fans no longer want to burn Day at the stake. You seem representative of my experience with Buckeyes. Well, at least those in my Columbus experience. Dallas was different.