Written by Mike Furlan

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media love, the fan support and of course the ridiculous, baseless expectations.

A 26-17 win over a horribly overrated Oregon team has propelled the Buckeyes back into the realm of high expectations and potentially severe letdown, so as we look forward to the 2010 season it is critical to not get caught up in the “irrational exuberance” surrounding this bowl win.  Remember that while the Buckeyes did dominate the ball for nearly 42 minutes in the game, they were only able to “steamroll” the Ducks for 153 yards on 3.0 ypc, only 26 yards more than their 127ypg average.  Even Pryor’s performance seems somewhat pedestrian when graded against the PAC-10 curve; he definitely played well, but was it really a Heisman watch list performance?  I tend to think that things are never as good or as bad as they seem, and that adage seems to apply nicely here.

There is no doubt that 2009 Ducks were a formidable offensive opponent, but there was never a doubt about the Ohio State defense.  The question was and still remains, is there enough offense to really put a scare into anyone; I am not sure.  The calendar has rolled another year, but this year’s offense is largely the same as last year’s.

The Offensive Line:  The offensive line was, well offensive in 2008 and only marginally better for most of 2009.  Mike Adams is struggling to solidify the starting position that he was supposed to lock up for at least three years.  JB Shugarts has been decent, but not exceptional.  Mike Brewster has been solid.  Bryant Browning is still playing (that is about all I have to say about that).  Justin Boren is the best of the bunch, but frankly this is not an offensive line that has been able to provide good pass protection or provide the push necessary to pick up that critical 3^rd and one.  Thank God the Buckeyes have a mobile quarterback.

Wide Receivers:  Dane Sanzenbacher has been a terrific surprise to those of us who said he was too small or too slow to excel at Ohio State.  He is a good receiver who will have an even better year in 2010.  Devier Posey is Pryor’s first option and for good reason.  The kid is a true number one receiver, combining the speed, hands, route running and ball skills to make him Ohio State’s best receiver since Terry Glenn.  Now that said, the Buckeyes are still struggling to find that third option; Taurian Washington’s hands are still made of stone (don’t let the Spring Game fool you), Chris Fields looks pretty good, but the fact that he hasn’t supplanted Washington says something, James Jackson is not going to be the guy (since he is already behind Fields on the depth chart), the ABCs of being a student athlete are still kicking Duron Carter’s butt, so in the end the Buckeyes really have no one yet.

Jake Stoneburner has moved to tight end and has been nearly impossible to cover.  Stop me if you have heard this one before, but it looks like the tight end will once again be a weapon in the Ohio State arsenal.  I’ll believe it when I see it.

Running Backs:  The nice thing about depth is that when a starter gets injured there is not a significant drop in production from the position.  Unfortunately when you are starting at average, well, the fact that there is not much of a drop is not really that big of a deal.  The backfield of Saine and Herron is very average; neither has shown any real “wow” factor.  To be honest it reminds me a lot of the 2004 season when Lydell Ross and Maurice Hall split the carries.  The best back on that 2004 team was redshirt freshman Antonio Pittman who was inexplicably buried behind Hall and Ross.  In a strange parallel, the best back on the 2010 Buckeyes is probably a redshirt freshman, either Jordan Hall or Jaamal Berry.  Both show better burst, vision, and quickness than Saine or Herron.  Pittman got 72 carries as a redshirt freshman, I wonder if either Hall or Berry will be able to steal that many this year.

The Spring Game…. is a farce.  It is the Spring sucker bet.  It is the equivalent of the ten team parlay that your wife plays on the betting ticket; it is a hodge-podge of 1^st stringers-3^rd stringers playing on incoherent units with little continuity.  The Player’s bet is the Jersey Scrimmage and this year’s Jersey Scrimmage was the most lopsided in the history of the game.  The defense dominated the offense in every aspect of the game.  That tells you that either the defense is All-World or that the offense is average and predictable.   I think the answer is actually both; the 2010 defensive line will be so good that it really doesn’t matter what they do in the secondary, and as long as the linebackers/safeties clean up the plays in front of them things should work out well for the Bucks.  The Buckeyes should be able to win several games with baseball scores, which is exactly what they may need to do.