official Tostitos ND/THE Ohio State University

[Sluss]

[ QUOTE ]
NW is a team fairly similar (but not as good as ND).

NW 48-7
Iowa 31-6
Indiana 41-10
Minnesota 45-31 (was a 45-24 until garbage time)
Illinois 40-2

The odds of Ohio State getting blown out in this one are extremely slim. ND's defense is very suspect, and this isn't a typical "run the ball" OSU team. In critical games, they have let teams march down the field and score near the end of the games virtually unchallenged. This is probably the most balanced OSU offense I've seen since 98, and I don't see them struggling to put up fewer than 28 points against the Irish.

In all honestly, If you told me that someone wins by 5 points, I'd be much more worried than if you said someone wins by 14+. ND is pretty much a one-dimensional passing team (e.g. Northwestern, Michigan State). The tough thing Weis is going to have to do is figure out how to play defense. He won't win a shootout.

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This should be an odd argument because I've watched 5 OSU games this year (Texas,PSU, MSU,NW and Mich) and every ND game.

What I gaged in those games was that OSU tries to get the ball to Ginn who I think was better last year than this year and seems to be living off of reputation. Santonio Holmes is a good reciever, but he seems to disapear for prolonged periods of time during the game. When they are playing well they are dominating the line of scrimage with runs by Pittman and Smith. Smith played very well against Michigan and has been pretty solid in most of the games I've seen and his stats look good.

I know that as a Buckeye fan you don't know what balanced means, but they ran the ball 470 times and attempted passes 274 times. That's a ball control running team. When they need to, they throw, but when they are in control they run.

You can call ND a passing team, but certainly not like Northwestern. They ran the ball 463 times this year and attempted 409 passes. That looks like balance to me.

Antonio Pittman finished the regular season with 1195 yards/5.4 YPC/15 rec 155 yards and 6 TDs

Darius Walker finished the year with 1106 yards/4.7 YPC/36 rec 314 yards and 8 TDs

FWIW, I think Weis would love to get into a shootout. The Irish certainly have more weapons and have been much more consistent on offense.

I think alot of people forget how much the Notre Dame defense slowed down USC. Leinart had a horrible game and so did White. It was all Bush all of the time. Their defense is very underated. It has most of it's problems because of the score of games. When your offense is scoring 38 ppg your defense isn't playing alot of clamp down D.

Weis is very good (ask Tom Brady) at breaking down an oposing teams defense if given an extra week (or in this case a whole month) to come up with a specific game plan he will do it.

What does the OSU defense do poorly? Is it defend short passes? Is it the deep ball? Is it stretch plays? Running up the middle? Every defense has a weakness Weis is the best in all of football, pro or college, at finding and exploiting it.

[TomCollins]

First, two of the games you watched had OSU playing a completely different gameplan. Second, when you are winning a game by 30 points, you generally going to run the ball every play no matter what. I don't think number of plays running vs. passing is really a logical comaprison.

ND OSU NW Texas Tech
Passing YPG: 334.3 215.1 296.8 403.6
Rushing YPG: 154.8 189.5 195.9 107.4

Passing Y% 68.4% 53.2% 60.2% 79.0%
Rushing Y% 31.6% 46.8% 39.8% 21.0%

So I was wrong. ND is EVEN MORE one dimensional than NW on offense. Not as bad as Texas Tech, however.


To close, a funny picture:

[pokerdirty]

LMAO

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
Every defense has a weakness Weis is the best in all of football, pro or college, at finding and exploiting it.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, he showed that against Michigan St. But then, they are a very complex team to decipher.

Watching Weiss on TV must be better than porn for you, huh?

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I think alot of people forget how much the Notre Dame defense slowed down USC. Leinart had a horrible game and so did White. It was all Bush all of the time. Their defense is very underated.

[/ QUOTE ]

So did USC have a bad day, or was it ND defense? It's funny. If USC has a bad day against ND(@ND), it's ND being underrated and a testiment to just how good they are. If ND has a bad day against say, Stanford or Michigan St., well, then it just was a bad day for ND and on any other day they'd have beaten them or been more convincing.

What a great double standard.

b

[Vince Young]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Every defense has a weakness Weis is the best in all of football, pro or college, at finding and exploiting it.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, he showed that against Michigan St. But then, they are a very complex team to decipher.

[/ QUOTE ]
How many teams scored more against MSU than ND did?

[TomCollins]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Every defense has a weakness Weis is the best in all of football, pro or college, at finding and exploiting it.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, he showed that against Michigan St. But then, they are a very complex team to decipher.

[/ QUOTE ]
How many teams scored more against MSU than ND did?

[/ QUOTE ]

You realize this was an OT game. So I'll give them credit for 38 points.

NW scored 49 points. Minnesota scored 41. OSU had 35. Michigan had 34 (31 in regulation). PSU had 31. All in the same ballpark. Also, a few of those games, those teams could have easily scored more at the end if the objective was to score more points than ND. ND needed all 60 minutes to even compete in this game.

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Every defense has a weakness Weis is the best in all of football, pro or college, at finding and exploiting it.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, he showed that against Michigan St. But then, they are a very complex team to decipher.

[/ QUOTE ]
How many teams scored more against MSU than ND did?

[/ QUOTE ]

1.

Mich St also gave up 34+ pts in 5 games. 40+ in 3 games. In route to a powerful 5-6 record.

b

[MyTurn2Raise]

That flowchart is funny, because it's true

ND will meet their just punishment in the bowl game they don't deserve to be in. Expect an tOSU blowout. This one is not close.

[TomCollins]

[ QUOTE ]
That flowchart is funny, because it's true

ND will meet their just punishment in the bowl game they don't deserve to be in. Expect an tOSU blowout. This one is not close.

[/ QUOTE ]

The best part is all the Domers and ESPN love has the line lower than it should be. $$$$$$$ for me.

[lastsamurai]

Don't get me wrong...I hate ND but i'm a fan of MONEY...I also like the charlie weis factor...He has 1 month to prepare and was a reggie bush push away from being 10-1...