Displaced Cleveland Fan

First, the good:

• This was actually a good game. After the past two national championship games and the blowout loss to USC early this year, everyone figured Ohio State couldn’t win a big game. Plus, they were playing a Texas team that had a (weak) argument that it should be in the national championship game. Even I, a Buckeyes fan, figured they would lose by about 17 points. But they didn’t. They stayed in the game, even looked like they might pull off a win if not for a Texas touchdown with 16 seconds left.
• I was really glad to see Todd Boeckman get some playing time in his last game as a Buckeye. From the first play of the game when he was at QB and Terrelle Pryor lined up as a wide receiver, I was waiting for him to throw a ball to the freshman. Sure enough, in the 4th quarter Boeckman threw a touchdown pass to Pryor to cut the lead to 2.
• Notice how Chris Wells didn’t play for most of the 4th quarter? Even still, this team moved the ball and scored some points.
• The defense in the first half was excellent. They held the Longhorns to just 3 points. They put pressure on Colt McCoy and Texas couldn’t run the ball. Second half, not so good. But with a team like Texas, one half of defense like the first tonight is good enough to give you a chance.

Now, the bad.

• The Buckeyes lost yet another big game. Another BCS game. I’m afraid the talk of the Buckeyes not being able to win the big game will only continue. (Though it really shouldn’t after tonight. They were competitive and almost won, unlike the infamous games against Florida, LSU, and USC.)
• The defense in the last 2 minutes. I know this is a good Texas offense. But come on. The game was yours. All you had to do was keep them out of the end zone for 125 more seconds. And I don’t understand why, on the final touchdown, that the Texas receiver only had one man to beat. That was just terrible.

Really though, I can’t say that much bad about the game tonight. Sure they lost. Sure the defense failed on us the final drive. But overall, despite those things, it wasn’t a bad game.

It is a shame though that Ohio State lost. Not only because it would have been nice to win, but now there will be calls that Texas should be the national champion, or at least have a share of the national title. No, Texas. You should not. You lost to Texas Tech, a team that got embarrassed by Ole Miss. And you almost lost to the Buckeyes when everyone believed you would destroy them. If anyone deserves a share of the title, it’s Utah. USC’s better than you too.

Tags: Chris Wells, Colt McCoy, football, Ohio State Buckeyes, scores, Terrelle Pryor, Texas Longhorns, Todd Boeckman

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 at 1:22 am and is filed under Ohio State Buckeyes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.