It was the layoff silly!
After Florida trounced Ohio State in the BCS Championship game OSU fans and the various pundits began to ask themselves if the 50-day layoff for the Buckeyes contributed to their awful peformance. Much was made of the layoff (it's the longest any team has ever had, we were told again and again) before the game.
The Florida Gators too had a layoff before the game, but it was 2 weeks shorter because Florida played a regular season game and then the SEC Championship after OSU finished its season.
So if we are to believe that the long layoff hurt OSU's chances to win we must assume that the difference was in the 14 days. I was hoping someone out there might have a theory about at which point in the 2 week layoff differential OSU began to be adversely affected.
Was their chance of winning diminished equally and incrementally over the 2 weeks or was there a ledge over which OSU's players dropped at some point (say 7 days into the layoff differential)?
In other words how much shorter would the layoff had to have been to maximize OSU's chances of blocking Jarvis Moss and Derrick Harvey? Or of not injuring Ted Ginn in a celebration? Or of punting the ball on 4th down from their own 29 yard line?
Just curious.
Mentioned in Austin Murphy's book 
8 comments:
I see two possibilities:
1.) If the layoff had been 2 weeks shorter, they STILL would have lost because their arrogance and overconfidence stood in the way of really being ready. They didn't believe they could lose to a team who didn't deserve to be their opponent.
2.) OSU, the layoff was exactly one day too long. Had it been played on Sunday 1/7, the Gators would not have had a chance. And if you believe THAT you are on something a lot stronger than weed.
Like I said repeatedly...had OSU won the game we would have heard nothing but praise for Tressel's superior gameplanning during long layoffs.
Since they lost, it's an excuse.
Coaching is part of football. A coach has to get his team ready to play not only physically but mentally as well. The Buckeyes had neither of those going for them on January 8th.
I thought it was hilarious when reporters asked Leak about the layoff in the post-game press conference. He said something to the effect of, "yeah it helped, guys got healthy, and we got to sharpen up our offensive scheme."
I encountered a Buckeye today who said that one of their offensive linemen gained 40 pounds over the layoff.
It sounds like sour grapes causes heavy, slow feet.
Even if we grant them their "layoff hurt us" theory . . . whose fault is that? Ohio State has full control of their schedule. Maybe they should become a big boy school and think things like that through.
Most of the OSU fans I've run into simply say, "You beat us. You're better. Please don't remind me." They've all been nice to me (what choice do they have?).
Actually the conference restricts the teams in the Big 10. They don't play any games on or after Thanksgiving weekend supposedly for academic reasons. And that's fine that's their prerogative just as it's their prerogative to stay with 11 teams and not have a championship game. But they can't complain about it later if it hurts them.
Thanksgiving weekend BIG TEN teams pig out and never recover...Troy Smith gained twenty pounds and looked like he couldn't scramble for crap. Maybe Woody knew what he was doing when he made his teams stay at monestaries and run down dumps at the edge of towns with no modern luxuries. Idiot Tressel subjected these cats to living high off the hog at a 5 star resort getting pedicures and massages, that only softened them up like they were on holiday. Maybe they'll show the SEC some respect next time instead of thinking it's all just a fun vacation.
I didn't realize that! That's why I come to your blog. Good stuff. Keep up the good work.
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