Spencer’s OSU-Northwestern Report Card

JON SPENCER’S OHIO STATE REPORT CARD

OFFENSIVE LINE

Don’t be fooled by the 421 yards of total offense. Ohio State’s attack was all about Beanie Wells and Terrelle Pryor making something out of nothing. Pryor did his best work when flushed from the pocket, and Wells’ 55-yard touchdown run came on tremendous second and third effort after he appeared to be stopped for a loss. The OL is what it is — which isn’t very good. It’s foolish at this point for us to think it would suddenly become a cohesive unit.

GRADE: C minus

RUNNING GAME

Take away his brilliant breakaway and Beanie Wells mustered only 85 yards on 27 carries. Part of that was the line and part of it was Northwestern selling out on the run. “Pass first, run second” is totally against Jim Tressel’s nature, even with 10 defenders in the box, but at least Terrelle Pryor had that mind-set when the pocket broke down. His most effective legwork came when he got out to the edge, kept his eyes downfield and bought time for his receivers to get open for big plays. His 21-yard gain on a third-and-16 broken play enabled him to throw the first of his three TD passes.

GRADE: B

PASSING GAME

It was nice to see that the Brians — Robiskie and Hartline, especially Hartline — are still alive and well. Robiskie, who had the team’s lone TD catch in the previous four games, caught a pair of scoring passes. Hartline had catches of 44 and 46 yards to set up a pair of TDs which almost matched his reception total (three) over the previous three contests. Pryor’s arm strength wasn’t a question despite 25 mph winds, and he showed remarkable poise in stepping out of a sack and firing a 6-yard TD to tight end Rory Nicol. All of the aerial heroics, however, masked poor pass protection.

GRADE: A minus

DEFENSIVE LINE

Across the board, this was easily the front four’s best outing. With a nagging ankle injury limiting Thaddeus Gibson, the team’s best pass rusher, everybody else seemed to step up their game. Tackle Cameron Heyward had a sack and forced a fumble that was recovered by sidekick Doug Worthington, setting up OSU’s final TD. True freshman Nathan Williams, an undersized end out of Washington Court House, had back-to-back sacks, and fifth-year senior tackle Nader Abdallah had the best game of his career with eight tackles, two pass breakups and a sack.

GRADE: A

LINEBACKERS

James Laurinaitis put a bow on the defensive effort with his fourth-quarter interception, redeeming himself for the personal foul that contributed to Northwestern’s only touchdown drive. The Buckeyes overcame quarterback’s Mike Kafka’s 126 yards rushing by dropping him for 43 yards in losses. With former Ohio Mr. Football Tyrell Sutton sidelined (ankle), Kafka basically was the Wildcats’ entire running attack. He fell well short of the 217 yards rushing he had last week at Minnesota. Ross Homan and Marcus Freeman made 13 stops between them and accounted for two of OSU’s seven tackles for losses.

GRADE: B plus

DEFENSIVE BACKS

Mike Kafka’s passing numbers were decent (18 of 27, 177 yards), but the secondary did a nice job of keeping everything in front of them. Anderson Russell made nine tackles and recovered a fumble caused by Malcolm Jenkins, setting up a field goal. Kurt Coleman had one of OSU’s two personal fouls on the Wildcats’ only TD drive, but played a solid game overall with seven tackles and a sack.

GRADE: A minus

SPECIAL TEAMS

The only play worth talking about was A.J. Trapasso’s fake punt in the fourth quarter. Flashing his old tailback form from high school, Trapasso made some nifty moves for a 9-yard gain and the first down. Up 31-10 at the time, TV analyst and former Heisman Trophy winner Andre Ware questioned the sportsmanship of the call, which led to a touchdown. There’s criticism you don’t hear too often: Jim Tressel being too aggressive with his play-calling. Northwestern’s longest return on eight kickoff returns was 24 yards.

GRADE: B

COACHING

Jim Tressel probably won’t get a Christmas card from Pat Fitzgerald after calling for that fake punt up 31-10 or allowing Todd Boeckman to throw deep up 38-10. The cameras caught Tressel grimacing after Boom Herron scored on a 16-yard run on the game’s final play, but if that’s the way he truly felt he should have taken a knee. In this case, Tressel has nothing to apologize for. An offense that has failed to score a TD in three games this season should take ’em any way they can get ’em.

GRADE: B

— Compiled by Jon Spencer

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