Ohio State's Secondary Rated #1 Overall In Big Ten

Roby is ready for a break-out year

The Ohio State secondary was rated as the best overall secondary in the Big Ten according to Tom Dienhart of the B1G Network. Dienhart goes one step further, continuing his praise for Ohio State's secondary unit by calling it "one of the best secondaries in the nation."

Here's how he looks at the secondary:

"1. Ohio State - All four starters are back for what should be one of the best secondaries in the nation. Cornerback Bradley Roby was a freshman sensation in 2011. His next stop: stardom. Travis Howard forms the other half of this strong corner tandem. 

Christian Bryant (strong) and C.J. Barnett (free) are a stout duo at safety. Barnett is one of best safeties in the Big Ten. In fact, he may be the top safety, flashing instincts, tackling ability and coverage skills."

The rest of the top 5 include Michigan State, Nebraska, Michigan and Illinois. He ranks the rest of the B1G, but here are the explanations for the top 5.

"2. Michigan State - Losing star safety Trenton Robinson hurts, but this still shapes up as a strong secondary. Johnny Adams rates as one of the top corners in the Big Ten—and the nation. He’s a legit Thorpe Award candidate and likely first-round draft choice. Darqueze Dennard is the ying to Adams yan, a corner with size and coverage skills who often is tested with Adams on the other side. 

Strong safety Isaiah Lewis came into his own as a premier talent with All-Big Ten ability last season. Kurtis Drummond is penciled in at Robinson’s strong safety slot. Coaches like his potential."

"3. Nebraska - The Cornhuskers are strong at safety even with the loss of Austin Cassidy. Strong safety Daimion Stafford should be one of the stars of the secondary and maybe the best player on the defense. He’s a big hitter who covers a lot of ground. Free safety P.J. Smith is a veteran who knows the defense and rarely is out of position. There is talent at cornerback but little experience. Standout Alfonzo Dennard is gone, which hurts. Mohammed Seisay arrived from a junior college in the spring and looks like a potential star as the No. 1 corner. Andrew Green and Ciante Evans—among others–also figure in at corner. Former running back Braylon Heard could an asset as a nickel or dime back."

Wednesday's Buckeye Bits

Good morning, Buckeye fans!  I certainly hope this version of the basketball Buckeyes left a better impression than the one that faced TSUN over the weekend.  The Buckeyes welcomed Brandon Paul and the Illini into Columbus, and quickly sent them on their way, cruising to a 83-67 victory. 

After Paul went for 43 against the Buckeyes in Champaign, he was held to just 9 points on 2-9 shooting this time around.  Deshaun Thomas and William Buford led the Buckeyes with 19 and 17, respectively.  Next up for Ohio State is Wisconsin on Sunday in Columbus.  The Buckeyes beat the Badgers in Madison earlier this month, 58-52.

Now, on to the bits!

Zach Smith a good fit in Columbus.  Smith, the new wide receivers coach for Urban Meyer, has plenty of ties to Meyer and the Ohio State football program.  This is a nice article about how Smith shares his passion for Ohio State with his grandfather, Earle Bruce.  Yes, that Earle Bruce.  The 27-year-old has worked with Meyer for five years and has also spent time coaching at Marshall and Temple.

Thomas, Buford Blow By Illinois 83-67

Deshaun Thomas scored 19 points and Ohio State (No. 9 ESPN/USA Today, No. 8 AP) regained its shooting touch, rolling over Illinois 83-67 on Tuesday night to remain in the thick of the Big Ten race.

Ohio State shot 65 percent from the field.

William Buford, much maligned for his recent poor shooting, had 17 points, and Aaron Craft added 11 to go with five assists. Jared Sullinger, third in the conference at 17.5 points a game, managed just nine before fouling out.

The Buckeyes (23-5, 11-4) stayed on the heels of Big Ten leader Michigan State with three games remaining. The sixth-ranked Spartans are 11-3 in league play heading into a game at Minnesota on Wednesday night. Ohio State will visit Michigan State in the regular-season finale on March 4.

Meyers Leonard had 21 for Illinois (16-12, 5-10), which has lost six in a row and nine of 10.

The game was a dramatic turnaround for Brandon Paul, who had 43 points in Illinois' 79-74 stunner over then-No. 5 Ohio State on Jan. 10. Paul almost destroyed the Buckeyes by himself, making 11 of 15 shots from the field -- including 8 of 10 3-pointers -- and 13 of 15 free throws.

Basketball Preview: #8 Ohio State vs. Illinois

The Buckeyes need to pull together

The Illinois Fighting Illini will begin their difficult end to the season tonight with a visit to Value City Arena to battle the eighth-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes in Big Ten Conference action.

Illinois improved its series record versus the Buckeyes to 103-69 on January 10th with a 79-74 victory over Ohio State at Assembly Hall. Brandon Paul had the third-best scoring performance in Illinois basketball history in the contest as he poured in 43 points after he drained seemingly impossible shots with regularity for 40-straight minutes.

Since the big win over the Buckeyes, Illinois has been struggling, going 1-8. Strangely enough, the Fighting Illini's only win during that span came against the Big Ten Conference's leading Michigan State Spartans. Head coach Bruce Weber's squad saw its overall record drop to 16-11 on Saturday after an 80-57 setback courtesy of the Nebraska Cornhuskers. The fifth straight loss for Illinois was caused by a 36-4 run by Nebraska which spanned two halves. 

Wanted: Forward Pass

OSU went 1/4 passing

It’s amazing what one win can do for your psyche in this kind of a season. Food has tasted better this week, it has seemed brighter outside (which is hard to do considering the amount of rain that has fallen over northern Ohio) and I have generally been nicer to those around me. All of this because of a football game. It’s hard to explain to those outside of our OSU fanatic niche how much a football team can mean but it really is one of the most important things in my life. As long as family, friends and my job are all humming along as expected, football is pretty much the next item on the list. I guess what I am trying to say is.. THANK GOD WE F’N WON A GAME! I was beginning to think I might never feel this way again in 2011.

The Buckeyes had been playing uninspired and sloppy football for the last couple of weeks which added two more losses to the one already collected in South Beach a month ago. If you’re counting at home, that is 3 freakin’ losses only half way through the year. Under normal circumstances that is like two years worth of losses. Unfortunately this season is anything but normal and OSU desperately needed a win in Champaign to get that Herpes B infected monkey off their back (too soon?). I think we all expected some growing pains this year but nobody predicted the horror show err... offensive production witnessed thus far.

Recap: Ohio State 17, Illinois 7

The return of Boom was huge

The Ohio State Buckeyes (4-3, 1-2) upset the Illinois Fighting Illini (6-1, 2-1) 17-7 on Saturday after an impressive showing of defense and pounding the Illini front line for big runs. The return of Dan "Boom" Herron was key in this game as he rushed for 114 yards on 23 carries. The Buckeyes also relied heavily on the defense, which turned out to be a not so bad idea. The defensive stance of this game was great, and although the offense was ridiculous, the defense was on it's game after the debacle in Lincoln.

The Silver Bullets forced 3 turnovers, two of which set up the Buckeyes' touchdowns, while Braxton Miller threw only 4 passes. Only one of those were complete, but the completion was a big deal, as it resulted in a 14 yard touchdown pass to Jake Stoneburner, to just about seal the deal on the upset and give the Buckeyes a 17 point lead. The passing game was very quiet in this game, as the first pass wasn't even thrown until the 7:22 mark of the second quarter. The touchdown pass was completed at the 13:06 mark of the 4th. Illinois quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase was 20/34 for 169 yards, with two interceptions, and 1 touchdown that was thrown to Evan Wilson late in the game to stop the shut out.

Another reason the Buckeye defense did so well? Bradley Roby and the rest of the Buckeye secondary played well, and stopped Scheelhaase's #1 target: A.J. Jenkins. Roby said during the week that Jenkins was "nothing special". At the time, Jenkins was averaging 135.8 yards a game, and in this game, often covered by Roby himself, only had 80 yards and 8 catches. That may not sound too bad, but they were catches that didn't really affect the drives all that much. Illinois senior tailback Jason Ford left the game in the 3rd quarter with an injured left shoulder after a big hit on a first down carry. He finished with 30 yards on six carries.

Live Blog: Ohio State vs. #14 Illinois

The Buckeyes travel to Champaign today at 3:30, and take on the undefeated Illinois Fighting Illini. Braxton Miller has been reported that he will start, but the challenge still remains. 

Join us at 3:15 PM EST and talk Buckeyes and give us your thoughts during the game! Go Bucks!

Preview: Ohio State vs. #14 Illinois

The defense will have their hands full

For once in a long time, the sides are flipped. The Illinois Fighting Illini (6-0, 2-0) are undefeated and host the Ohio State Buckeyes (3-3, 0-2), who are in a down year without a doubt, in this week's Big Ten match-up. The Illini enter perfect, behind the arm of sensational sophomore quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase, who has thrown 80/120 (66% completion percentage) for 1,238 yards and 10 touchdowns so far this season. Illinois has reason to be excited heading into this game against the Buckeyes, as the Illini are off to their best start since 1951, and has a lot of motivation to win this game, since the last time they beat Ohio State in Champaign was 1991. Senior receiver A.J. Jenkins is the go-to man in this offense, and he leads the conference in receptions. With all of this hype, a win over the Buckeyes could be the cherry on top for an already amazing season. This could give them some serious momentum heading into the rest of their conference slate, and could provide Illinois with a chance for a shot at BCS glory.

Of course, Ohio State has some weapons of their own. Carlos Hyde rushed for 109 yards against Nebraska, and Braxton Miller controlled the squad to a big 20 point lead. The offense in the second half suffered a huge blow when Miller went down with an ankle injury, but reports tell us that Miller is fine, and is ready to play against Illinois. Boom Herron returns in this game, but might not see many carries with the way Jordan Hall and Hyde have been carrying the ball. Against the Illini defense, which is ranked 17th in the country, the Buckeyes will have to bring their best.

A Long Way To Go

Miller showed he can compete

I don’t know if I would feel better today about a complete blowout in Lincoln, NE or the way things really went down on Saturday night. On one hand, the offense looked fairly competent during the first half giving me hope for the future. On the other hand, coping with complete melt-downs like the one witnessed in the 4th quarter are a really tough pill to swallow.

Braxton Miller finally showed glimpses of what may be in store for OSU during the first 30 minutes on Saturday night. He looked more comfortable in the pocket and appeared to know when to scramble to pick up crucial first downs. His throws were much better than in previous weeks and it really looked like the rout was on when the Bucks pushed the lead to 27-6 early in the third quarter. Then Braxton showed that he is still 18 years old and gave Nebraska a cheap touchdown with a fumble deep in Buckeye territory. Things would go downhill quickly from there. The offense completely abandoned the things that were working for most of the game and the defense also began to show signs of panic.

Hopes And Fears: Illinois

Wow, that Nebraska game was an ugly loss. We looked so good in the first half and so bad in the second half. I understand how important a QB is, especially a starting QB having a good game, but losing him should cause the defense to completely fold, and yep in the second half the silver bullets were more like empty blanks. Now, it is on to Champaign to play Illinois, a game that I really want to win. First of all my wife went to U of I, so we have house bragging rights, and I live in Chicago, so I deal with all kinds of Illinois fans, I really don’t want to lose!!

Now on to my hopes and fears for the game. I believe that my hopes and fears are essentially the same thing in this game. First of all, I hope Miller does not get hurt again, because I fear we will have to see Joe Bauserman again. 

Live From Lincoln: Being At The Ohio State-Nebraska Game

Too bad we couldn't pull out the win

First of all I have to say it was great to see so many in Scarlet and Gray make the trip west! It would have even been greater had we pulled out the W. Saturday was the first time I had ever been inside Memorial Stadium after living in Nebraska for the last 5 years. Only for my Buckeyes would I do that!

The game started out great, seats were pretty good, nice enough people (except for the drunk guys a few rows back). I was not to optimistic about the Buckeye team I had watched against Michigan state, I did not know who was going to show up and who was not going to. I was surprised to see as the first half went on that it looked like we had practiced, spent time on film and had some emotion to begin the game.

ITS's BlogPoll Ballot: Week 7

No explanation this week for the BlogPoll ballot, but keep in mind that I moved down South Carolina 2 spots, simply because I didn't think Arizona State would beat Utah, and that impressed me. Other than that it was a very unexciting college football weekend, perhaps the first of the year. Add to the fact Ohio State loss in a way unthinkable, and the whole weekend wasn't much fun. So here's the BlogPoll ballot, explanation-less. Give your thoughts and comments below.
   

 

 

Inside The Shoe Ballot - Week 7

Rank	Team	Delta
1	LSU Tigers	--
2	Alabama Crimson Tide	--
3	Oklahoma Sooners	--
4	Stanford Cardinal	--
5	Wisconsin Badgers	--
6	Oklahoma St. Cowboys	--
7	Boise St. Broncos	--
8	Clemson Tigers	1
9	Oregon Ducks	-1
10	Arkansas Razorbacks	--
11	Michigan Wolverines	2
12	Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets	--
13	Nebraska Cornhuskers	1
14	Illinois Fighting Illini	1
15	Kansas St. Wildcats	1
16	Virginia Tech Hokies	4
17	West Virginia Mountaineers	2
18	Arizona St. Sun Devils	4
19	South Carolina Gamecocks	-2
20	Michigan St. Spartans	4
21	Texas Longhorns	-10
22	Baylor Bears	3
23	Houston Cougars	--
24	Penn St. Nittany Lions	--
25	North Carolina Tar Heels	--
Dropouts: Auburn Tigers, Florida St. Seminoles, Florida Gators

 

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »

Recap: Ohio State 27, Nebraska 34

Carlos Hyde's 67-yard run.

When Ohio State (3-3, 0-2) built a 27-6 lead over the favored, 14th ranked Cornhuskers, Buckeye fans across the nation watching could believe that they had finally turned it around and were ready to start competing. The Cornhuskers were on their heels for the majority of this game, at least, until true freshman Braxton Miller gained 3 yards on a 2nd down play.

That play is significant because Miller hurt his ankle to the point in which he could not return in this game, but even previous before that, the ghost of Maurice Clarrett seemed to come to the Huskers side, as Lavonte David stripped the ball right out of Braxton Miller's hands on a medium gain run. After that, the Cornhuskers rolled on offense.

Perhaps the reason is when Braxton got hurt, that left the game in Joe Bauserman's hands. Bauserman came in when Ohio State was then clinging to a 27-13 lead, and went 1/10 (10% completion percentage) for 13 yards and 1 pick. Every incompletion sailed high over every intended target, even some wide open ones. On the flip side, Taylor Martinez and Rex Burkhead just dominated in the second half, as the defense for OSU must have been super tired after not getting any long breaks from touchdowns while Bauserman was in. Martinez went 16/22 passing for 191 yards and Burkhead ran for 119 yards on 26 carries. Carlos Hyde led the Buckeyes in rushing with 104 on only 13 carries. Before Braxton Miller was injured, he was doing very well throwing the ball, and of course running. He went 5/8 (62.5% completion percentage), and rushed for 95 yards on 10 carries.

2011 Big Ten Tournament Preview

With the first round of the Big Ten Tournament finished in Indianapolis, eight teams are left vying for the championship and automatic berth into the Big Dance.  Ohio State, Purdue and Wisconsin are locks to make the tournament, while Illinois is almost certainly in.  Joe Lunardi has Michigan in as an 11 seed, but they may need to beat the Illini to give them a chance to dance.  Michigan State scraped by Iowa in their first round game to enhance their bubble chances, while Penn State defeated Indiana in the nightcap to earn their place in the quarterfinals.  Despite defeating Minnesota in their first round matchup, Northwestern will likely need to win the championship to advance to the NCAA Tournament.



Jared Sullinger leads the Buckeyes into March



Ohio State is a lock for the NCAA Tournament and possibly a lock for a 1 seed going in to the Big Ten Tournament.  The Buckeyes will look to continue their hot shooting from the record-setting performance against Wisconsin into the postseason. 

Archie Griffin - Big Ten Icon #4

Archie Griffin: 4th best Big Ten athlete?

Over the past few months, the Big Ten Network has been announcing the top 50 student-athletes in conference history.  Most recently, Archie Griffin was chosen as the fourth best student-athlete in the illustrious history of the Big Ten Conference.

Now at first glance, this may seem low for the only player to win two Heisman Trophy awards, but media are speculating that the top three are expected to contain Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Red Grange and another Buckeye Jesse Owens, the top four could be interchanged. 



Live Blog: #1 Ohio State vs. #22 Illinois

Join us and other Buckeye fans as OSU takes on Illinois in Champaign.

Game Preview and ULTRA-OBJECTIVE opinions: Illinois

The Chief doing his best David Lee Roth impression from the "JUMP!" video.

Who: University of Illionois at Urbana-Champaign. The Fighting Illini. Their mascot may of may not be Chief Illinewek. Undergrad population of a little over 31,000.

What: Step (f)5.

When: Tomorrow at noon eastern, butt crack of dawn pacific time.

Where: Memorial Stadium and Big Ten Network.(On the Rocks in Redondo Beach, Ca. for me. They have Buckeye watch party specials! Hammed by noon.)

Why: I like turtles.

Ron Zook likes turtles too. Unfortunately for Zooker, he doesn't have an awesome zombie face paint job...... or a job in a few months with the way things are looking. Oh the Big Ten coaching hot-seat, sounds like a popular place this time of year.

Good news everyone, Big Ten play starts tomorrow! You know what that means? Well a couple of things really; we can root against Michigan without the whole "conference prestige" BS and the Buckeyes get to face off against familiar competition. It's kind of a "devil you know" situation. Illinois first played OSU in 1902 and OSU leads the series 62-30 with 4 ties coming in there too. Remember when there were ties? Wow, that was lame. It's been a couple of years since Illinois and Juice Williams came to Columbus and took the wind out of our sails. Admittedly I was super pissed because it was my first trip back to Columbus since graduating. Not exactly how I wanted that to go.....

Representing: Illinois

So with the past two teams not having bloggers, we put the Representing off. Now that Big Ten is in play, we will go back to having it every week. This week the blogger from Hail To The Orange kind enough to pick his brain about the upcoming game, and the rest of his thoughts on Illinois.


1. Right now, how do you feel about where the Illini are as a team?

I actually feel pleased, even though they are at this point in the season where I predicted them to be win wise, they have demonstrated improvement from week to week that we haven't seen here in Champaign for a few years now. The offensive line has held together much better after a really bad opening week, and the defense while not exactly lock down has improved in its coverage and tackling.

2. With Juice gone, Who's the key guy, the player that they have to build around to win games?

Mikel Leshoure, who has gone over 100 yards in four straight games now is the centerpiece of the offense. He has explosiveness in the open field that we haven't had since Rashard Mendenhall and he is finally getting the ball 20 plus times per game. If we can get him going we will keep the game at least closer than maybe many expected.

3. What has to happen for Ohio State to beat Illinois, and vice versa?

The defense to vaaaastly improve their pass coverage. The weakness of the team is the secondary which is plagued by injury and inexperience. Tressel would be wise to go deep and often to challenge those players.

4. Do you think the Illibuck matters to fans anymore?

If for no other reason than it means we have likely beaten a highly ranked opponent it does. Besides with the new Land of Lincoln trophy and the somewhat lame Purdue Cannon, this is the best trophy we have right now, and it is by far one of the cooler looking ones anyway.

5. How will Illinois finish the season? (W/L, Bowl game(?))

I had this team at 6-6 at the beginning of the year, and that is where I see them staying, it should be enough to get them to a bowl game and it will be more than enough to keep Zook around for another year. If the Illini can come back to play Purdue and Indiana well after going against OSU PSU and MSU in consecutive weeks, there are enough wins left on this schedule to make a bowl.

Who you got?: #2 Ohio State vs. Illinois

The battle for the Illibuck continues this year in Champaign, where we last saw Terrelle Pryor in his freshman year, along with Beanie. Beanie was jumping over opponents to victory, but this time the Buckeyes are led by a team, not just a certain unit or player.

Ian: 45-10 Ohio State - Saine has a good day on the ground, and Pryor just adds to his Heisman hype.

SBB: 52-13 Ohio State - The defense plays well after getting chewed out by the coaching staff for giving up 2o to EMU. Pryor tosses 3, 2 of which go to Posey to let him know that he's still his favorite. Dane get's 1 as well. The running game gets it going as Ian's fav, Jaamal Berry, gets in the game much earlier than in the previous weeks. 


Brady: 38-7 Ohio State - This will be the first test on the road but the Buckeye's have a different feel about them this year.  In the past I might be a little leary of this one but not this season.  Pryor has another big game through the air and we finally get the bigger dose of Jaamal Berry everybody has been clamoring for.  The defense also gets back on track.

Danny: 38-10 Ohio State - The days of Juice Williams and Rashard Mendenhall terrorizing the Silver Bullets is long gone.

2010 Team by Team Previews and Outlook: Illinois

I figured that now would be a good time to go through the Big( Soon to be called Twelve Currently Eleven but called )Ten team by team, from the bottom up in an attempt to have something to look back on in December as a complete failure. This will be my attempt at prognosticating wins and losses for each team and if they're lucky choosing a projected conferences record, overall record and maybe even a bowl game! (Where you can win fabulous prizes like this SONY WALKMAN!!!) It's no secret that the Big Ten and its fans have high hopes this year for the conference after an excellent bowl season last year that saw them go 2-0 in BCS games where they were picked against more often than not. To meet, if not exceed these expectations not only do teams have to make a bowl, they have to win them. I aim to weed out the contenders from the pretenders and list out for the bottom up where each Big Ten team stands as I see it from my completely unbiased and objective scarlet and gray thrown. We'll start with Number 11.....


The Illinois "Fighting" Illini. I put "fighting" in quotation marks to imply that they don't have much fight left in them for this season, see what I did there? It's no secret that the Ol Zooker's cupboard is pretty bare. Gone are the likes of Aurelius Benn and Isiah "Juice" Williams that took this team to a Rose Bowl back in 2007. It seems like a long long time ago that the Illini made it to Pasadena, and rest assured they won't be back any time soon.

"Hey, that's not very nice, SBB!"

Illinois Returns 5 starters on offense, supposedly three of them are on the offensive line, which is why I can't name any of them. Mikel LeShoure returns as starting tailback where he saw most of the action last season but was very limited due to injury. Eddie McGee isn't even being considered an option at QB which leaves it a two freshman horse race for the starting spot. Lucky for this poor guy, he gets 3 returning lineman, but he still doesn't have anyone we've heard about to throw to.

The Illini defense is more of the same, filling some holes left by last year's starters sprinkled in with a returning player or two. For a lot of programs this would be no big deal, but Illinois recruiting has dropped of in recent years due to people not buying what Zook is selling.

Illinois' 2010 schedule with projected results:
Mizzou (L) - They weren't good enough to hang with the Tigers last year and this year won't be any different.
Southern Illinois (W) - If you can't beat a directional state school you should just give up.
Northern Illinois (W) - See above.

BYE

Ohio State (L) - Big L. Even if I weren't the world's biggest homer, I'd still see this ending the same way.
@ Penn State (L) - PSU doesn't have a QB yet, but that doesn't matter.
@ Michigan State (L) - Mark Dantonio's team will have to try hard to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory here.
Indiana (L) - Too much talent at QB and WR for the Illini defense to keep up with the spread attack of IU.
Purdue (L) - Robert Marve is the new starter apparently since he transferred from "DUH U" which must make him at least decent. Purdue's D is always pretty solid and the lack of offensive fire power won't do them any favors. Danny Hope's Mustache FTW.
Michigan (L) - Yep, bad enough to lose to Michigan. Last year Michigan showed they could score some points against inferior competition and that's what will happen here. This game will come down to who wants it more and pride/belief in the program and since it's so late in the season I could see it going either way depending on circumstances.
Minnesota (L) - Tim Brewster's madness wins. He'll later tweet about it since he knows how to do that somehow.
Northwestern (L) - The Wildcats have another mobile white QB waiting in the wings and will use him to find a way to win an ugly game.

ANOTHER BYE WEEK

@Fresno State (L) - Wisonsin had trouble with Pat Hill's bulldogs recently and nothing leads me to believe that Zook can figure these guys out. A long trip to (ugly)Fresno, California won't help much either.
Final Prediction: 0-8 in Big Ten play, 2-10 overall. Obviously no bowl game. Zook could be on the way out by season end.

Crying because his Illini suck so bad. Not because Zook is getting fired or because of litter for that matter.