Our Biggest Strengths Against Ohio State is...

I think our biggest strength against Ohio State may be our team depth. We now have a lot of young guys that have played in our system this season. We might need to play a lot of different guys constantly to throw OSU off. If each guy comes in to focus on beating his match up on every play we should win. Having everyone healthy plays into this strength as well. If the coaches can break this down to each guys individual playing opportunity and the importance of it I believe this might bring much more focus to each individual play and its success.

What are some of the other unique strengths we might bring to our game with OSU?

 

I think everyone is gonna say speed. But we have a coach that calls plays to win the game and trusts his players. Not taking anything away from Tressel, but that has been an advantage for us all year.
Another thing, we have 4-5 RB's that could see playing time, each bringing something new to the table. No one tackles Hester on the first try, and if they don't tackle solidly, he will do to OSU what he did to that freshman from Tenn at the beginning of the game.
I think you already said the big things. We WILL be HEALTHY! And its at our dome away from home too

 

Yes, having 5 running backs is a big key. Another key is how many different receivers we have. I hated that Early has missed so many games. I have to believe this is part of our destiny. If Early plays the whole season we don't come into this game with so deep a receiving corps. Running those timing routes for Matt and Ryan are tricky. With so much time to prepare for this game I think Crowton will have at least a dozen new plays drawn up to use. I think it's gonna be an awesome display of speed and talent exhibited. We just need to execute with no penalties. If we dominate this game I truly believe everyone will conclude what we already know, we struggled late in the season due to how tough the SEC schedule is.

 

Our greatest strenght is also our biggest weakness, which is depth...Sometimes we struggle deciding who should be on the field, but that's to be expected when you have that many players coming in and out of the game...However, I do believe that the pros of having depth are much bigger than the cons.

 

The speed thing is a myth. :grin: I agree with TenTex. Our depth is a big strength.

 

I agree with your post. That is why I believe if our coaches prepare and have a sound game plan using all our weapons on offense we can give these guys from OSU a hell of a game. 5 weeks to prepare after a full season is a very unique opportunity for our team in our situation after the rough schedule of the SEC. We are overly battle tested which OSU is not. We need to fire everything we have all game long so the defense is totally frustrated with not knowing what is coming next. Remember the VT game. There very good defense did not have a clue what we were going to do next. With so much time we can do the same thing.

 

I agree that our depth is a great strength of ours. However, just looking at all the complaints laid out on the table throughout the year, I conclude that depth will not be a factor in this game. It will be experience.

The complaints were that Les doesn't play the right people, or doesn't play the strong hand. If you take a look at those that fit that bill, it's easy to conclude that they are all underclassmen. Williams, Scott, Murphy, Perriloux, etc.

:milesmic: leans on the seniors to get this one done. tOSU will get a heavy dose of Flynn, Hester and Doucet in this one, IMO.

 

running qb

offensive diversity--unlike OhSt, they have to hedge their bets on who to stop

healthy DL--beanie wont get into secondary free

fisher--god, i hope not, but if our O cant get it done, he will be invaluable in field position battle.

 

This is a tough one but I will have to say us being tested week in and week out. We know how to win close/big games. Secondly, I fully expect a hard fought game against OSU because they got embarrassed last year in the NTG. I think we have the stronger team, but which teams has the bigger heart? Also, do we get back to an aggressive defense? I think so, Pelini has something to prove to his new Nebraska team/recruits.

 

Dorsey, if he's healthy. Ohio St. is a run first offense, whose passing game is fed by defenses stacked to stop Wells. If Dorsey is his old self, or not but the rest of the LSU D-line plays well and plugs the middle, then the Buckeyes are in deep (insert foul word here). That will send the Buckeyes wide where the LSU linebackers can do their thing. I'd really like to see LSU play aggressively and blitz a lot in passing situations, to make Boeckman unload early. But controlling the middle, the way the Gators did last year, is key, IMHO.

It's why the Big 10 gets hammered in the Rose Bowl so often. When your offense is one dimensional and you have that dimension taken away, what do you do then?