DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Info: OSU Spring Game

Linkadocious

OSU football spring game at a glance
Thursday, April 19, 2007 3:48 AM


1 P.M. SATURDAY • OHIO STADIUM
• TV/Radio: Channel 10; WBNS-AM (1460)

• Tickets: $5 each at the athletic ticket office in the Schottenstein Center and at all central Ohio McDonald's locations. Tickets also will be available at 9 a.m. Saturday in the north rotunda of Ohio Stadium, as well as gates 4 and 7 and in the southeast ticket lobby of St. John Arena. Ticket sales Saturday will be cash only. The Schottenstein Center will be closed Saturday. Will call tickets can be picked up at St. John Arena.

** Note for Out of Towners: (Live video streaming of the game will be available beginning at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at Dispatch.com and BuckeyeXtra.com.)

I heard our O is horrid so far in practice

You are correct, But that doesn't surprise me considering we are breaking in a new QB and none of the contenders have seen much playing time if any. Also both starting WRs and the RB and FB are new, so it'll will take awhile for them to get adjusted to each other and their new responsibilities.

Check this article out. The Bball team is coaching the game!!

http://www.sportsline.com/collegefootball/story/10135653/1

Tressel gives OSU hoops players coaching duties for spring game
April 18, 2007
CBS SportsLine.com wire reports

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Talk about having a lame-duck coach.

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Basketball point guard Mike Conley Jr. will be an honorary head coach in Ohio State's annual intrasquad Scarlet vs. Gray spring football game on Saturday.

Conley, along with high school classmate and friend Greg Oden, led the Buckeyes to a 35-4 record and the national championship game. Now he, Oden and a third freshman, Daequan Cook, are contemplating jumping to the NBA.

Conley said he was looking forward to being in charge of the Scarlet's offense.

"I play my share of video games," he said Wednesday. "I like to get up and down the field with the passing game. I'll mix in some run plays here and there as well."

Football coach Jim Tressel said he wasn't trying to hide the fact that he wanted to keep Conley and the other freshmen at Ohio State.

"I certainly want them around here. If we have to put them on the staff to do that, then we'll do it," he said with a grin.

The 7-foot Oden was also offered a chance to coach, but had to turn down the opportunity to be the tallest college coach in the country.

"Oden is in the tank because his aunt is getting married," Tressel told his team as they drafted players on Wednesday afternoon for the scrimmage. "He's already started watching film, but he can't be here."

Conley will be assisted with the Scarlet squad by hoops teammates Cook, Mark Titus, Othello Hunter and Kyle Madsen. Jamar Butler, also a starting guard, will be the head coach of the Gray team, with help from Ivan Harris, David Lighty, Danny Peters and Matt Terwilliger.

"This is going to be a great experience being down on the field at the 'Shoe coaching the football players," said Butler, who will be a senior. "I've played football but never coached -- but I'm still going to out-coach Mike."

They'll actually call the plays, off a list given to them by the football coaches.

Tressel first proposed the coaching jobs soon after the basketball team returned from an 84-75 loss to Florida in the national title game in Atlanta on April 2. Basketball coach Thad Matta checked with the players and sent a text-message to Tressel 10 minutes later: "The guys are ready and they're already watching film, getting ready for the draft."

None were at the actual draft, but they'll play major roles on Saturday.

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"They're going to give the halftime talks and they're going to talk to the guys when they're off the field," Tressel said.

Asked if he was taking the day off, Tressel smiled and said, "Absolutely."

Each year the football coaching staff tries to make the spring game -- which concludes 15 humdrum practice sessions -- as much fun as possible for the players. To keep interest high, they run quirky plays that will never see the light of day during the season.

"I am going to have to think about some trick plays," Conley said. "I don't have anything in mind right now but I'll have to work on something for the weekend."

At Wednesday's draft, a degree of trash talking was not only permitted but encouraged.

After the football coaches divided up the veteran players, offensive tackle Kirk Barton and several others drafted players to round out the Scarlet squad.

Later, Barton was so pleased with the players he picked that he said one of the Scarlet quarterbacks wouldn't have to play hard in the fourth quarter because he'd be taking a knee to preserve a lopsided win.

Brandon Smith, a tight end and fullback, was in charge of the Gray's picks.

Goaded into predicting victory, he eventually said, "We're going to win. ... We've got a great defense. We should be able to hold them to just a handful of points and hopefully dominate and ring up the scoreboard on them."

Quote:

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The Bball team is coaching the game!!

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Is this to completely remove any doubts that may exist about how to choke when playing Florida?

Just a heads up.. NCAA will kick off on the 30 and the posts are the same dimensions as the NFL now.

Linkadilly

OSU football: New rule adds yards to kickoffs
Friday, April 20, 2007 3:42 AM
By Tim May

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Ohio State kicker Aaron Pettrey said through hard work during the winter, he added about 3 or 4 yards to his kickoff length. Which is good, because he is going to need it.

The rule-makers of college football opted to push the kickoff back 5 yards, to the 30, starting this season. They want fewer touchbacks, more returns. And if the snapshot offered at Ohio State's kick scrimmage yesterday was an indication, that's what they're going to get.

Pettrey, who knocked in touchbacks on 37 of his 64 kickoffs last season, didn't come close to one on his three kickoffs yesterday in Ohio Stadium. His backup, Ryan Pretorius, didn't, either.

Yet neither left the premises kicking and screaming at the rule-makers.

"It's just part of the game," Pretorius said. "People get bigger and stronger all the time, so they back it up so the game becomes more exciting."

Besides, "Not too many people care about the kicker anyway," Pettrey said.

What they care about, it seems, is taking more of the foot out of the game. In the past 21 years:

• The kickoff was moved from the 40, where it had been since 1925, to the 35 in 1986, now to the 30, like the NFL.

• The placement pad used for field goals and extra points was eliminated in 1989, forcing kickers to kick off the ground, like the NFL.

• Goal posts were narrowed, from 23 feet, 4 inches, where they had been set in 1959, to 18 feet, 6 inches in 1991, the same as the NFL.

• The maximum height of the kickoff tee was lowered from 2 inches to 1 inch last season.

"I think kickers like to be challenged," coach Jim Tressel said facetiously when asked for his take on the succession of changes.

But it's no small matter to him, either. If the biggest play in football is the punt, as he is wont to say, then the kickoff for a touchback also has ranked right up there the past several years. Josh Huston had 54 touchbacks on 77 kickoffs in 2005, and Mike Nugent got 40 on 62 kickoffs in 2004.

Now it's going to be much more of a challenge.

"It makes one more play maybe exciting more often," Tressel said of the reasoning behind the change. "But I used to think it was exciting when Aaron would hit them through the goal posts, and Huston and Nugent."

Although Pretorius said the premium will be on precisely hit popups to give the coverage players, starting 5 yards farther back, more time to get downfield, Pettrey said he is still going to give it the old college try at banging it through the end zone.

"That was always one of my favorite things to do, because I have a big leg," Pettrey said. "They kind of took it away from me, but I don't know, hopefully, I'll just keep hitting them this year. Not too many people will, and, hopefully, I can."

Pretorius hit a 50-yard field goal yesterday for the Gray in its 37-36 loss to the Scarlet. The win was due to a 43-yard touchdown pass off a fake punt from A.J. Trapasso to Rory Nicol, followed by Pettrey's extra point. But the winning point-after came from 35 yards out because of an excessive celebration penalty on the Scarlet after the TD.

"I think Coach had them throw the flag, just to add a little more pressure," Pettrey said.

tmay@dispatch.com

Spring game coverage
The Dispatch's broadcast affiliates will offer live coverage of Saturday's Ohio State spring game.

WBNS-TV (Channel 10) will air a pregame show at 12:30 p.m., followed by the game at 1 p.m. The station's coverage will be simulcast, via live video streaming, at its Web site, 10TV.com.

The Ohio News Network, ONN, will carry the game and the pregame show, beginning at 12:30 p.m.

WBNS-AM (SportsRadio 1460/The Fan) will begin its pregame coverage at 11 a.m.

I'm kind of glad they moved the kickoff back to the 30. There were never any runbacks in games with even halfway decent kickers. When Nugent and Huston were Bucks, they frequently kicked it out of the endzone and sometimes through the uprights. That's a joke to me, as much as I liked seeing the other team never return a kick. This might even add a little extra thought to the coin toss where teams automatically defer in college because they know they'd be starting on the 20 if they accepted. Seems like a good change