DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum It's M*CH*GAN week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Go Bucks!

they are obviously a better team this year.

good thing that does not matter in this series. go Bucks and let's start Hoke's tenure off with an OSU win.

I wonder if all the Urban Meyer talk has been a distraction this week, or if (as I suspect) it will cause the players to rally around Coach Fickell and come out with a major chip on their shoulder. I would love to see the Buckeyes come out and pound the ball down their throat with Boom Herron, Jordan Hall, Carlos Hyde, and Braxton Miller running through, by, over, and around the Blue defense. Don't know if that can happen, but I think its the only way we win. I don't see us winning with Miller passing the ball much - he's still too raw imo. Looking forward to seeing what Coach Meyer can do to develop Miller, if reports are true about his hiring being a done deal.

I think that Meyer and OSU probably have the decency to wait till after Fickel's last game as Head Coach.

Nothing against fickel...but this is OSU....only proven coaches get legit shot here...Fickel was NEVER a head coach anywhere...this was his first gig...talk about starting at the TOP....

I hope he sticks around for few years as our D cord and gets a good gig somewhere else as a head coach down the line...i would love to have him here after he has had few years somewhere else as a head coach down the line.

While I appreciate your enthusiasm, only hours left in our 7 year run.

Every now and then Livingston writes a good column. Following is from today's Plain Dealer:


Can the Buckeyes hold off the blue horde?

Bill Livingston
The Plain Dealer
Saturday, November 26, 2011

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- For the last time with Luke Fickell as Ohio State's head coach, the Buckeyes will emerge from their tiny dressing room at the top of the tunnel at Michigan Stadium on Saturday and clatter down to the playing field. Under a noon sky, the perfect hour for a showdown, they will face the din and disruption of college football's biggest rivalry.


Into the storm's blasts, Fickell's players will take the allegiances they formed in that small room -- and in the weight room and on the practice field and in the heat of games. They are bonds that their coach would not let circumstance and controversy break. They believe this is the compass that can steer them back to a safe haven.

Asked if his 6-5 Buckeyes were playing to secure a winning season, a plusher bowl destination, for him, or for what, now that the six-year run of on-the-field Big Ten championships is over, Fickell said, "For one another."

That is where their loyalty really lies. All that male-bonding stuff, all the Agincourt "band of brothers" ideas about conflict in a hostile land, really do apply. In the biggest football stadium in the country, against a peaking archrival that believes payback for seven years of defeat is at hand, it will come down to those few who left the room and walked with locked arms onto the field.

The afternoon will have an elegiac feel to it because Fickell will be supplanted by glamorous winner Urban Meyer next season. Fickell followed Jim Tressel, the Buckeyes' coach who dominated Michigan as no Ohio State coach has ever done, and he will have preceded Meyer, who will be expected to win even bigger.

When Tressel was forced out by scandal, he took with him the stated intent to foster a family feeling between himself and his players. It had some truth to it, but it was not the happy extended clan Tressel depicted. It was a star system as much as most major college football programs are.

Maurice Clarett, Troy Smith and Terrelle Pryor, his three highest-profile players, all received NCAA suspensions for taking improper benefits. Each was more equal than everyone else. Pryor became the Johnny Appleseed of the tattoo scandal. His running mate, DeVier Posey, was the heaviest penalized player in the jobs scandal involving a Cleveland booster.

The two scandals cost Fickell some of the timely reinforcements he needed to stop the bleeding. His method of dealing with the attrition has been to instill a warrior caste, one that neither mourns nor misses defectors, one that looks forward to new challenges, not backward at lost opportunities.

It worked, in as much as the team held together, despite talent reduction, injuries and controversies. The issue of the selfishness of the suspended players in sabotaging their own senior seasons and those of blameless teammates never erupted in the locker room.

But now, in "The Game," against the opponent that defines seasons at Ohio State, with a team that seemed resigned to losing by the end of last week's defeat by Penn State, can Fickell possibly succeed?

Fickell faces the most unpromising circumstances since Tressel won with a backup quarterback here in his first try in 2001.That quarterback was Craig Krenzel, who would win bigger games for Ohio State, including the 2002 national championship game against Miami. Then again, Tressel was lucky with quarterbacks. Krenzel was not his first choice. Nor was Smith, who beat Michigan three times.

Fickell decided Pryor was not worth the aggravation. The interim coach dallied too long with limited Joe Bauserman, but now he has true freshman Braxton Miller, a Troy Smith run-alike, if nothing else. Unfortunately, Miller's inexperience, along with those of his receivers, has made the passing game a failure.

Can you win "The Game" with an offense out of the days of Bo Schembechler and Woody Hayes? Upon taking the job, Fickell said, "I will take this shot any way I can get it."

He will take his last shot the same way he said he would approach each challenge, "Never sound retreat."

Fickell has another saying, "Next man up."

It is as if it is a baseball game, and pinch hitters can do their part. But his batting order is short on big sticks. The Buckeyes are left with intangibles and attitude. They might be all Fickell has to offer at this stage. Then again, he might be referencing the only truths that last. When his Buckeyes walk back to that tiny locker room here, they will not have gained any character, win or lose, from what happened in "The Game." They had it when they walked out.

© 2011 cleveland.com

talk about Superbowl games for a coach.

Fickell is likely a 1year rental coach. He will either be undefeated against Michigan or never beat them.

Hopefully, he has been treating the entire year like that and the team will be ready.

Yea!!!!!

What a freakin score!!

I hate sabino

Man, I'm not one to usually complain a whole lot about penalties ..... but those were 2 horrible calls against OSU.

That false start was horse *%R*

So was the hold before it.

The hold in the end zone was legit though.

This defense is bad, and I mean really bad compared to past defenses.

Man I hope that Meyer can turn Miller into an effective passer. Not even a great passer ..... just effective.

It seems like every call is going to go Bleh today, so the Buckeyes are going to have to be just that much better.

j/c - what the heck is up with OSU and all the penalties? I can't watch the game because I'm at work, but I have the ESPN gamecast on, and it seems every time I look at it, there's another OSU penalty...killing themselves?

Some have been ... questionable, at best.

Miller just completely blew a TD pass. Posey was open by 10 yards, and he overthrew him by 10.

TD Buckeyes!

17-16 Good Guys!

Big TO and nice TD tOSU!!!!!!

I've never felt hatred like this watching a football game. Good guys leading, hope they keep it up.

Well, this is gonna be a defensive struggle.

Run post routes all day.

Michigans CBs can not defend it.

Not having Heyward and Williams really hurt us this year.

This defense is a disgrace.

They make me sick to my stomach.

Need a TD with 2 minutes or so left to pull off an extremely unlikely win.

Let's go Buckeyes!

Miller is leaving this win all over the damn field.

Posey was WIDE open.

How does Miller miss those two throws... Come on man!

Good effort for the first down though. Nice to see a QB try to get the 1st instead of running out of bounds.

Well, that's the ballgame, and the streak.

They gave it all they had, but Miller missing about 4 throws for long TD passes today was a killer.

Pathetic two minute drill. Pathetic...

I have never seen a team spike the ball on 3rd and 6.........? wow

Man, asking Braxton Miller to win you the game with his arm is like asking Superman to save the world with a big chunk of Kryptonite in his pocket.

j/c

Well, if it wasn't for Miller, game might not have even been that close. Leaves some hope for next year, I'll say that.

I've seen Michigan play a couple times this year, and there's really no way it should have been that close. Michigan's D had played a lot better.

So it goes.