Ohio State Round Table: Split Personality Edition-Week Four

Over the past decade, Ohio State football fans have gathered a wide range of experiences. We’ve climbed to the highest of highs when our team won a National Championship, and have stumbled to the lowest of lows when… our team failed to win a National Championship. The more casual followers can take this up and down journey in stride. Those of us who follow the Buckeyes more fervently, like I do, react differently. I often find myself battling on the inside; debating internally on different aspects of the game. It’s as if I have split personalities and they’re all playing tug of war, battling for my frame of mind.

This round table is a weekly forum for these personalities to voice their opinions.

It was a soggy scene in Columbus, Ohio. Fans were spending fifteen dollars on scarlet rain-ponchos, tailgaters were trying to keep their food dry, and the Buckeyes were bringing shame to anyone affiliated with Illinois athletics.

But for this week’s round table, we’re going to head in a different direction. Instead of reviewing the game, we’re going to ask the personalities about the most important player on the team. We have our three regulars back (Optimistic Oscar, Pessimistic Parry and Realistic Randy) to give us the run down. Let’s jump in.

In past round table’s, Terrelle Pryor has drawn comparisons to Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite, Mumble (the lovable penguin from the movie Happy Feet) and the Greek legend, Achilles. Let’s go on the record: what are your feelings toward Terrelle Pryor?

Optimistic Oscar: This is so ridiculous. If anyone doubts Pryor’s ability, just go to YouTube and type in his name. The 957 videos that come up are easy evidence of his greatness. I’m tired of all the bickering. This ends now.

Look, I realize he has a long way to go, but that’s exactly my point! The kid is only a sophomore. It’s not fair to jump all over him because he isn’t throwing for 300 yards a game and running for another 100. He’s still young, and he’s still going to make mistakes.

I always thought it was unfair when people compared Terrelle to Vince Young. Yes, they’re both tall, athletic quarterbacks, but Vince Young was arguably one of the best (college) quarterbacks in recent memory. He had the ability to take over a game completely on his own. What has Pryor done to deserve being mentioned or compared to a guy who single handedly beat USC in the National Championship game? Just because they’re both duel threats — it doesn’t make them equals.

People are too hard on Pryor because of those misguided expectations. They’ve built him up in their heads as some freak combination of Tim Tebow, Sam Bradford, the Incredible Hulk and Mother Theresa.

Curiosity is a funny thing, though. I wanted to see how Terrelle Pryor matched up against Vince Young early in their respective careers. After doing some research, here’s what I found:

Vince Young’s freshman season (2003) started much like Terrelle’s — second on the depth chart behind an upperclassmen quarterback. That year, Texas had a titanic match-up with Oklahoma in their annual rivalry. Texas was blown out of the water (65-13). Sound familiar? Kind of like how we got our behinds handed to us by USC in Pryor’s freshman season.

Just like Pryor, Vince Young was named the starter the week after their huge loss. In Young’s 7 starts his freshman year, these were his stats:

588 yards passing with 60% completions, 5 TD’s with 5 Int’s, 607 yards rushing with 5 rushing touchdowns.

Compare that to Pryor’s 10 starts in his freshman year:

1,224 yards passing with 60% completions, 12 TD’s with 4 Int’s, 502 yards rushing with 5 rushing touchdowns.

You have to take in account that Pryor had 3 more starts than Vince, so I averaged it out. Pryor had 172 total yards and 1.7 touchdowns per game; Vince Young averaged 170 total yards with 1.4 touchdowns per game. They had identical completion percentages, but Pryor took care of the ball a little better than Young.

Advantage — Pryor… slightly.

What Ohio State fans are most frustrated with is Terrelle’s supposed lack of improvement from his freshman to sophomore seasons. I mean, he’s been with the program well over a year; he has plenty of game experience, so he should be reaching his potential, right? He should be putting up Bradford type numbers in the passing game and Barry Sanders like numbers in the rushing game. At the very least, he should be on par with Vince Young’s numbers his sophomore season. Well, let’s take a look at some of Vince’s sophomore stats, game by game:

Week 1: 14/21 – 153 yds passing, 1 TD, 0 Int’s, 49 yds rushing with no TD’s.
Week 2: 11/22 – 150 yds passing, 2 TD’s, 0 Int’s, 56 yds rushing with no TD’s.
Week 3: 11/18 – 161 yds passing, 3 TD’s, 2 Int’s, 64 yds rushing with no TD’s.
Week 4: 15/20 – 189 yds passing, 2 Td’s, 0 Int’s, 55 yds rushing with no TD’s.

It’s a total of 877 total yards with 8 total touchdowns. Through 4 games, Pryor has accumulated more passing yards and more rushing yards, totaling 930 yards and 7 touchdowns.

You can argue that Terrelle has more turnovers, but come on. Texas wasn’t playing anyone resembling the caliber of USC or Navy (the stats above were achieved against North Texas, Arkansas, Rice and Baylor), and Vince certainly didn’t play any of these games in monsoon-like conditions (like Pryor did against Illinois).

For arguments sake, we’ll take a look at one game where Vince Young played a good, USC-like team his sophomore year. Conveniently enough, the Oklahoma game took place in the fifth week of the season. Here’s Vince’s line in that game:

8/23 – 86 yds, 0 TD’s, 0 Int’s, 54 yds rushing (on 16 carries) with 0 TD’s.

To this point in their careers, Terrelle Pryor has matched, or slightly exceeded, the on field production of Vince Young.

People — stop panicking. Terrelle Pryor is a fantastic playmaker, and one of the most gifted athletes in college sports. He’s good, and he’s going to get better.

This argument is over.

Pessimistic Parry: … I feel like I’m in the last scene of the movie 8 mile. Oscar is playing the role of B-Rabbit (Eminem), and I’m his nemesis, Papa Doc. We’re involved in a rap battle, he gets to go first, and ‘tears it up’. I run off the stage and hide in shame. You win this one, Oscar.

Realistic Randy: Ditto. Good work Oscar. If you keep this up, we’re going to change your name to Overly-prepared Oscar.

Round Table Archive:

Week 1-http://www.bucksinsider.com/football/ohio-state-round-table-split-personality-edition/

Week 2-http://www.bucksinsider.com/football/ohio-state-round-table-split-personality-edition-week-two/

Week 3-http://www.bucksinsider.com/football/ohio-state-round-table-split-personality-edition-week-three/