| 06 September 2009
Something in my game review is getting overlooked. The importance of the two touchdown passes to the game. Everyone is getting the personnel angle with Anderson Russell. How it impacted the game is the other important point. If not for those passes this is a completely different game. Ohio State gets up early and coasts to a comfortable victory is a likely headline. Without those two plays we are likely looking at 29-10 or even 29-7. The defense played well in this game. What little disagreement I am seeing about my review is the defensive line played well. This Navy team was the number one rushing team in the country last year at 282 a game. They are always top five. We held them to 186. 100 yards less.
That is alot of yardage. Take away the first drive rush yards, 70 of the 80, and the rest of the game they rushed for 116 yards.Really good outing against a very awkward opponent.
The personnel issue is huge though. Fans are asking why aren't we going with someone else? There is no one else. Johnson is dinged. Apparently Wood is not ready. No other player currently lined up at safety would be a better option than Russell. You do not want Gant, Oliver, Damicone or Pentello covering the deep third of the field. Trust me on that.
What most are dismayed about is once again we see an offensive line not be able to control the line of scrimmage, let alone dominate it. One of the defenses for this effort is that it is the first game of the season. No, it is the latest in a long line of disappointing games. The right side was as bad as it was last year. I thought Browning had the potential to be a good guard. Not so far he is not. Several guys that know more about line play then me say we are fine with Cordle out there at tackle. Not yet we aren't.
We are talking about the 4th and 2 call. Why did we try a play that they had stopped earlier. Because that is what you do when you dominate the line of scrimmage. It is a mindset. We believe in the principle. I agree with that principal. We just don't do it well. This confuses me and frustrates me greatly. If the staff did not believe in it, did not believe in a power running attack, I could understand that we were not good at running right at people in short yardage. That we do believe in it, don't do it well, but don't seem to be looking for fixes just leaves me shaking my head.
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