From Slight to Slighted

Will Boom explode in ‘09? (AP: LaPrete)

Well, maybe not slighted entirely but it sure has been a quiet spring when you consider Boom Herron is firmly cemented as the starting tailback after filling in admirably for the often dinged Beanie Wells last season.

Coming into last season, the biggest knock …
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2009 Ohio State Pro Day Results Better Than NFL Combine

2009 Ohio State Pro Day Results Better Than NFL Combine

With 60 scouts from 29 NFL teams watching, Chris Beanie Wells and Malcolm Jenkins ran better times at the Woody Hayes Facility than at the NFL Combine weeks earlier with Marcus Freeman putting in another stellar performance. Their improved times may reassure teams that the two are worth the high draft rankings they have received in the past.

Film: Ohio State’s James Laurinaitis Prepares for 2009 Pro Day on Campus

Continue reading at Brutus Report

Combine update: One for the road

I’m about to hop in the car and put it on autopilot for I-70 East….man, what a straight, flat trip. Before I leave cavernous Lucas Oil Stadium, though, here are a few more tidbits: — Beanie Wells just unofficially ran…
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From the combine: Questioning Beanie’s toughness

Today is the day for the skill players at the NFL Combine, quarterbacks, running backs and receivers. My hot topic for the day is Beanie Wells, and how teams view him. His injury history seems to be holding him back…
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NFL Scout Puts Wells at the Front of the Herd

AN NFL SCOUT BREAKS DOWN 2009 DRAFT CLASS

Tom Dienhart
Rivals.com College Football Senior Writer

Rivals.com talked to a director of college scouting for an NFL team. Here are his early position breakdowns on the NFL draft heading into the NFL Scouting Combine, which begins in earnest today in Indianapolis.

Ohio State’s Chris Wells is part of a big group of quality running backs.

INTRO: I try to put most of my weight on what guys do in the fall. The tape doesn’t lie. You have the Mike Mamulas and Vernon Gholstons, guys with big biceps who run great, then can’t play. The one thing workouts like the combine are good for is you get a view of how athletic they are and how fast they are on a clock. And, hopefully, it matches what you see on tape. If it doesn’t, then it causes you to go back and look at tape again.

RUNNING BACKS: I think the juniors really boosted the running backs class. Teams should be able to get a good back through the first three rounds. … Look at the underclassmen: [Ohio State's] Beanie Wells, [Pittsburgh's] LeSean McCoy, [Connecticut's] Donald Brown, [Georgia's] Knowshon Moreno, [Wisconsin's] P.J. Hill, [Iowa's] Shonn Greene. That’s a pretty strong group. I think there is real value there, and I think you’ll be able to get them a little later with a chance to hit on one. … I think Wells is the guy who has pushed out in front of everybody. He is the bell cow right now of this group.

Click here to view full article > http://collegefootball.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=914271

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Big Ten bowl wrap-up with Jim Delany, Part II

Posted by ESPN.com's Adam Rittenberg

Here's the second half of my bowl wrap-up interview with Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany. For Part I, click here.

Given that these things tend to be cyclical, do you see a four- or five-year stretch of winning records on the horizon for the Big Ten?

Jim Delany: That's what we came out of. We had four or five years where we had done pretty well. If you look at the history of it, you can break it down by 20 years, 10 years, five years. People don't get to where they've got without having some success along the line. To whom much is given, much is expected, and we have amazing universities, amazing fan bases, amazing resources. We have very good coaches. It's more the surprise if you go on a four-year, five-year period where you're not competing at the very top. And having said that, I don't think it's as far down as many think. If you want to pick out LSU, Florida and USC and say, 'Did we get beat good?' I'd say, 'Yeah.' I'd also say, 'Did anybody else play them at that level?' They're beating everybody pretty good.

You've had four consecutive seasons of getting multiple teams in BCS bowls. Given the recent struggles, are you still confident that it will continue next season?

JD: You have to look at each year on its own merits. If you have a team in the Top 10 and they're going to travel well, they could go. We don't have a situation where the top eight teams go. We have a situation that is different. A lot of people were complaining that Utah wasn't [No. 1]. Well, if it wasn't for the BCS, Utah wouldn't have been in a major bowl. Nor would have Boise [State in 2007]. Nor would have Hawaii [in 2008]. The BCS made those venues available in ways that were never available before. So rather than criticize it, I look at it as, 'Hey, we've opened up the system.' People might say, 'The Rose Bowl should be opened up and anybody should be able to go.' And I would say, 'That's something that was built over 60 years, and I don't think that's going to happen.' I look at it as hey, we've played some great football teams. We've been competitive in some cases, we've won some games and we've gotten beat pretty soundly in some others. Those are the facts. If you can't be honest enough about the facts, you're not being realistic. And you have to be realistic. They have been really, really good, and we haven't had a team at the level that Florida played at, at the level that LSU played at and the level that USC played at. At all other levels, we've got teams that can play, and at a particular time and place, we can climb back up. I'm optimistic and resilient about it.

You mentioned USC, LSU and Florida and not having a team quite at that level right now. Do you think a team isn't far from that in the Big Ten?

JD: It's hard to know because wherever Florida was this year, they weren't there last year because we beat them. And LSU, the year before they won it, we beat them. So I don't think that there is a big gap between playing at what I would describe as super elite level and at a very good level. Penn State had four or five losing seasons and coach [Joe] Paterno said, 'We're just a few players away.' Well, he was correct. I look at Ohio State with Beanie Wells and Terrelle Pryor and they were certainly all Texas could handle, but without them, they really weren't capable against USC. So I really don't think it's far, but who's to say? We've got a half dozen of our 11 teams, they have young staffs, new staffs, that are building programs. I think Michigan will be back quickly, Illinois is on the upswing, Michigan State's on the upswing, Iowa, Northwestern, Minnesota. Having played on three teams that went to Final Fours and never won a national championship, I can identify with how good Ohio State is. They're a very, very good college football team. It's more a sign of the times when somebody can be that good, accomplish that much, win at Texas, play Texas tough this year, do a lot of really good things, and people can only find out, if you're not [No.] 1, you must be no one.

Oklahoma will go through the same thing now, no doubt.

JD: I think there's something fundamentally wrong with tagging somebody who accomplishes something as much as the Oklahoma team has accomplished. That means there could only be one great program, and everybody else is a loser. And you know what? That doesn't conform to reality. That doesn't conform to my sense of quality. I'm not saying we can't get better, we won't get better, we haven't been better. All I'm saying is there are a lot of good football teams. Congratulations to Florida for winning two of the last three and the SEC. They have clearly demonstrated they're at the top of the heap in this cycle, and they should be recognized for such. But I've always felt the Pac-10 didn't get their due. Everybody was down on the Pac-10. Well, USC was pretty good, they went 5-0 [in bowls]. But again, it's five games. I look around at people that were 4-2, they could have been 2-4. But it is what it is, and I take a little bit of a longer-term view. You have to look at your programs and say, 'OK, what's really going on? Do you like the leadership of your programs?' And in all of my cases, I say, 'Yeah, I do.' They have enough resources to be successful. They have great fan bases and media agreements. So everything's in place, and there's not a lot of difference between winning and losing. You have to tip your hat to those that are at the elite level, but you can't crawl in a hole and start making excuses and self-flagellating. The infrastructure's there to be very good.

We talked about urgency before the bowl season. Is there a new sense of that or an even heightened sense going into the 2009 season?

JD: Our coaches and our players are not immune. They realized that we haven't performed on the big stage as well as we would have liked to. So I think they played very hard. I saw how hard Penn State played. I thought Ohio State played really hard. The [Northwestern] Wildcats, I was really proud of how hard they played. So I don't think it's a matter of urgency because if your players are playing their hearts out and your coaches have them prepared and they lose the game, there's no shame in that. If you're doing it the right way in college sports, while you're disappointed, you get up, you clean your pants off, you go back to spring practice, you continue to recruit, you hope the kids graduate and have a good experience, and you congratulate the people that won the game. That's how I've tried to view it, even though I'd much rather win the games.

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Running back spot to get makeover in Big Ten

	US Presswire
	Javon Ringer and Chris Wells will be working on Sundays in 2009.

Posted by ESPN.com's Adam Rittenberg

The Big Ten's best position on the field this season will have a very different look in 2009.

After boasting three of the nation's top six rushers and six players ranked in the top 40, the Big Ten has seen major turnover at the running back position. In addition to graduating seniors, the league will lose three underclassmen — Iowa's Shonn Greene, Ohio State's Chris "Beanie" Wells and Wisconsin's P.J. Hill — to the NFL draft.

Seven of the 11 conference members have lost their leading rusher from this season. And of the remaining four teams — Penn State, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota — only Penn State finished in the Top 25 nationally in rushing offense (205.9 yards per game) this fall.

Though the league figures to make much-needed upgrades at quarterbacks, there will be a void in several backfields.

Here's a look at what the Big Ten lost at running back:

• Iowa's Shonn Greene won the Doak Walker Award as nation's top back, ranked second nationally in rushing average (142.3 ypg) and set a single-season school record with 1,850 rushing yards.
• Michigan State's Javon Ringer ranked fourth nationally in rushing average (125.9 ypg) and led the nation in scoring (10.2 points per game) with 22 rushing touchdowns. Few non-quarterbacks accounted for more of their team's offensive production than Ringer.
• Ohio State's Beanie Wells finished sixth nationally in rushing and racked up 1,197 rushing yards despite missing three games with a foot/toe injury. Wells finished his career ranked fourth on Ohio State's career rushing list.
• Purdue's Kory Sheets ranked 31st nationally in rushing and tied for 19th in scoring this season. Sheets also caught 37 passes out of the backfield and ranked sixth in the league in all-purpose yards.
• Wisconsin's P.J. Hill became just the second player in team history to eclipse 1,000 rushing yards in his first three season as a Badger. Despite splitting carries with John Clay, Hill racked up 1,161 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns.
• Northwestern's Tyrell Sutton led the team in rushing (890) and ranked fourth in receptions (35) despite missing the final four regular-season contests with a wrist injury. Sutton was a four-year starter and the team's most consistent offensive player.
• Indiana's Marcus Thigpen ranked fourth in the league in all-purpose yards (143.2 ypg), tied for eighth in scoring and ninth in kickoff return average. Thigpen quietly averaged 6.7 yards per carry for an Indiana team that didn't have many reliable options on offense.
• Michigan's Sam McGuffie transferred to Rice after a season in which he finished second on the team in rushing yards (486) and third in receptions (19).

Several of these teams developed backups for 2009. Iowa's Jewel Hampton, Wisconsin's Clay and Ohio State's Dan Herron look capable of stepping into featured roles. Purdue's Jaycen Taylor returns from injury and likely will be the starter.

Other squads relied heavily on players who won't be back in 2009.

But outside of State College and maybe Ann Arbor, the running back competitions will be one of the offseason's top story lines as we inch closer toward Sept. 5.

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Beanie going pro

ESPN is reporting that Beanie Wells has declared his intention to join the NFL draft.
More details and commentary later.
Link
Story By Men of the Scarlet and Gray

Why Ohio State will win the Fiesta Bowl

OK, so we’ve all seen the “teh Big Ten suuuucks” comments all over the place, and we know that nobody outside of this glorious state isn’t giving the Buckeyes a chance in hell tomorrow night.  But let’s take a step back from the bash-fest and discuss what I think will happen in Arizona.

Ohio State will win tomorrow night’s Fiesta Bowl.

Here’s why;

1) Ohio State is unbeaten in bowl games against the Big 12

I’ll bet you didn’t know that.  Everyone’s too busy reminding us that we’re 0-for the SEC and lost two bowls in a row.  But we are a perfect 5-0 against the Big 12 in bowls, knocking off top 10 schools twice in the last 10 years.

2) Ohio State is awesome in the Fiesta Bowl

- The Fiesta Bowl is where we beat Miami to win the title after the 2002 season.

- The Fiesta Bowl is where we beat Kansas State after the 2003 season

- The Fiesta Bowl is where we beat Notre Dame after the 2005 season

And before anybody says anything about the Florida game, that wasn’t the Fiesta Bowl, it was the BCS National Championship game.  Boise State beat Oklahoma in the Fiesta that year, we just played in the same stadium a week later.

3) The Big 12 does not know how to stop a power running game

The stats of Big 12 schools are loaded with high-powered passing games, and as a result the defenses are built to stop the pass.  They (Texas especially) are not set up for success against the run.  In what should be Beanie Wells’ final game as a Buckeye, expect him to put out a bruising performance.  Also, expect them to keep handing him the ball, unlike his last two bowl games when we abandoned the run for some reason.

4) The Big 12 is showing their weaknesses when playing other conferences

The facts are right there….the Big 12 may have been the most overrated conference this year, based on how crappy they look outside of their comfort zone.

• #7 Texas Tech was outraged when they got shafter from a BCS bowl.  Then they flat out looked like warm piss against a middle-of-the-road SEC school, losing the Ole Freaking Miss by 2 TDs
• #13 Oklahoma State got spanked in harsh form, surrendering 35 points in the second half to Oregon.  Oregon had allowed 111 points in their previous 3 games, setting up the potential for an offensive team to crush them….Okie State failed miserably at that chance.  But their coach is still a MAN!
• #21 Missouri had Jesus Christ at QB, and Mary and Joseph in the stands praying, and they needed OT to beat a school that had only won one bowl game in the history of man.
• Nebraska squeaked by a really bad ACC team.  Seriously, Clemson was the 8th-best team in a horrific conference, and the Huskers nearly lost to them.
• Kansas put up the only worthwhile performance (so far), doubling up on Minnesota 42-21.  But then again, Minnesota fell apart this year, losing by 55 points in their final game.

It’s also worth pointing out that EVERY Big 12 school was favored, sometimes heavily, and played poorly time and time again.  This all bodes well for the Buckeyes, who might be facing the 2nd-best team in a conference overrated all year.

And if Ohio State puts the beating on Texas, the Big 12 should be terrified. And you should go put the house on Florida against Oklahoma.

5) The Big Ten has had the deck stacked against them this bowl season

When Ohio State was selected to play in the Fiesta Bowl, it slid every other team in the conference up a notch.  For example, the 4th-best team in the conference was now playing in the #3 team’s bowl slot.  This led to almost all of our teams playing against teams that were better than they are.

Had the Buckeyes stayed in their “#2 Big Ten team” slot, the bowl matchups would have been more in line.  Here’s what we would have seen….

• Penn State vs. USC – same result
• Ohio State vs. Georgia – the Bucks beat Sparty by 30+ points and Georgia struggled with them…Ohio State wins this one
• Michigan State vs. Missouri – Mizzou just looked awful against NW, and MSU has a better defense (plus a more formidable running game).
• Northwestern vs. South Carolina – NW walks away a winner.  I’m still not sure SC even deserved a bowl game
• Iowa vs. Kansas – No way, no how a Kansas defense slows down Greene
• Minnesota vs. Florida State – I’m still going to say Bowden rolls
• Wisconsin vs ??? – Surely Wisky would HAVE to fare better….right?

As you can see, the success that Ohio State had ultimately led to the overmatching of the rest of the conference.  We would have likely gone 5-2 or 4-3 instead of the maximum two-win bowl season.

Will all this be enough to knock down a Texas team that feels slighted by the BCS system?

Yes.

Ohio State 27
Texas 24

Story By The Buckeye Battle Cry

Fiesta Bowl Press Conference – Offense

Tostitos Fiesta Bowl Press Conference Thursday, January 1, 2009 with Rory Nicol, Brian Robiskie, Brandon Smith, Beanie Wells and Offensive Coordinator Jim Bollman.

Story By The Official RSS Feed of Ohio State Football Head Coach, Jim Tressel

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