Ok, this week's tirade will surround the ABC/ESPN Troy Smith Heisman Trophy anointing once again. If Saturday wasn't proof that Brady Quinn is more deserving than Troy Smith, I don't know what is. Don't get me wrong. I don't think Brady Quinn is a great QB. Good, possibly very good, but not great. I also don't think he is "college football's most outstanding player." The argument I'm making isn't that he is deserving of the Heisman. The argument I would like to make is that he is more deserving than Troy Smith.
Troy Smith had a very average, perhaps even below average, game on Saturday against a team that just isn't very good. He had only 107 yards passing, no touchdowns, and one interception. If Brady Quinn were to ever have that type of game, we sure as hell would lose. It really wouldn't matter much who we were playing. But what did OSU do? They won. Why? Because Troy Smith has playmakers around him, he has a running game, and yes, even a defense. Brady Quinn has an "off" game against Georgia Tech in which he proved that his leadership is invaluable to our team and he effectively drops out of a Heisman race that was, at least at season's beginning, his to lose. Troy Smith has a fairly bad day at the office and he gets a pass on criticism. What is it with everyone loving OSU? And I can tell you right now what's going to happen. OSU is going to beat Michigan by a few scores (because Michigan really isn't that good, I've been saying this for weeks) and Troy will come out looking like a hero because of the perception of the type of football team Michigan is.
Brady Quinn has very little if any of those things (a running game, playmakers, defense, etc.). Last year I would have said Jeff Samardzija was a playmaker. This year, not so much. It's funny, I'm not the only person who thinks this given that Bunting kind if snickered when reporters asked after the game why they didn't try to double team him. Obviously, we don't have a running game. We can't consistently run the ball against some of the worst defenses in the country. On top of this, Brady spends much of the time on his back. Go look up how many times Troy Smith has been sacked (I know, I know, he is more mobile and that helps him out). Our defense, while at times plays well, isn't consistent, gives up big plays, and very rarely generates any sort of effective pass rush.
Without Brady Quinn, we are nearly nothing. We are an ineffective offense. He is a leader, he is tough, he is a playmaker, and he has a very good arm. His decision making and ability to read defenses is suspect, but his mechanics, talent, and intangibles aren't. Troy Smith is a gamer, he is as clutch as they come, and he has incredible athletic ability. But he isn't the most outstanding player in the country, not by a long shot. There are too many others around him that make him better, things like an offensive line, a defense, and playmakers. These are the same things that made Matt Leinart an unworthy winner of the Heisman Trophy as well.
Ok, enough of that. I'll move on to the real stuff.
Offense
Plain and simple, Brady Quinn is the reason we win football games. What I said above is true, we don't really have playmakers, but you don't need them to win in football. Everyone likes the Reggie Bush's, the Calvin Johnson's, the Larry Fitzgerald's. But Weis never had superstars at New England. He had solid players that contributed, knew their roles, and did what they could do well. We have the same thing. Jeff Samardzija isn't a great athlete. He's a good athlete, but he isn't great. He has excellent hands (when he wants to), can jump, runs good routes, and performs when given the opportunity. But the reason he has succeeded so much is because Weis hasn't asked him to do more than he can, to do the things he isn't capable of doing, the things his natural abilities aren't suited for. Carlson is the same way. He isn't really a great tight end in the pure sense of the word. But he frequently comes up big because he consistently does the things he is good at. Weis splits him out wide to get him on a linebacker or safety who just can't cover him one-on-one. At any rate, my point is that Brady Quinn alone isn't the reason that we win, but without him we don't win football games. If Brady Quinn had gone pro after last year, we would have likely won only 5 or 6 ball games this year. He had a very good game on Saturday. I counted four bad passes, but you can't be good all the time. For someone who was pressured much of the day, he really played well.
Our offensive line continues to play poorly against severely under-talented competition. I don't understand how essentially the same offensive line from last year can have regressed so much.
Carlson had another solid game. He continues to write his NFL paycheck on a weekly basis. I hope he stays around for another year but I doubt he will. The tight end class in the draft this year is weak and there's really no reason for him to stay around to prove something else. I just think he would be a tremendous asset for a new QB to have, a tight end who can stretch the field down the middle and who also blocks fairly well.
It looks like Aldridge is going to be the downhill running back we need. Give the kid a hole and he really hits it hard. He also has the ability to take a few tacklers with him and he isn't slow.
We are missing Schwaap in the running game. McConnell just can't cut it, especially when we need to kick a defensive lineman out or lead on an outside linebacker. In the inside he is fine, but when we need him to make a one-on-one block on the outside, he struggles.
Obviously Samardzija broke the career touchdown receiving record. All in all, he had a pretty good day. But he should have had another touchdown catch. You can't drop those in the endzone like that.
Defense
The front four, well really three of the front four, played a tremendous game. Laws and Landri were really pretty unblockable most of the game. Victor was a manchild. He has really come along these last few games. And if he wasn't held every other play, he'd have twice as many sacks as he currently does. I hope Laws remains next year for senior leadership on that line next year. And I think Abiamiri is really earning him a draft position right now.
Overall, the defense really didn't play that poorly. Giving up less than 250 total yards and about 30 on the ground really is respectable. We just have to cut out the big plays. The kickoff return also made the game look closer than it was. The one thing our defense didn't do well was tackle. This was especially true when we got to the quarterback. We let Dailey get out of our grasp way too often.
Despite what it looked like, Lambert really didn't have that terrible of a game. Wooden, on the other hand, kind of did. It's probably some residual effects of not playing for a little bit of time.
This game the defense played well up front and then sort of leveled off. There was an emphasis by Weis on getting good play early on in the game by the defense. It seems like when we work on something on defense, some other area goes untouched and regresses. In fact, this seems to be a general trend of our team overall, something I address right below.
Summary
I am growing in concern that Weis' attitude about only caring whether we win or lose isn't going to cut it. I do agree, wins and losses are the only stats that matter. However, we seem to be guilty this year of playing to the level of our competition. When a team does that it isn't indicative of improvement. At some point, this will come back to bite us. The game on Saturday should have been over at halftime. We should have come out in the second half, drove down the field once with our first team, scored, and put in the scrubs. Weis doesn't seem to have the head coaching thing down where he is able to put our team in the proper mindset. This could be merely an adjustment from the professional to college level. Rarely did the teams he coached ever come out flat, and that was in much longer seasons with many more games. But for some reason, we just don't seem to have the right mindset many of the times. On top of that, he has yet to fix our anemic running game. With the talent we have on the offensive line there is no excuse for our running game our the way we protect our QB.
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