OSU Heading Down Buckeye Lane: One Week To Go

There is only a week until the Buckeyes kickoff the 2007 season against Youngstown State.

The key offensive core of the 2006 Ohio State Buckeyes is gone in 2007. Troy Smith (Baltimore Ravens), Antonio Pittman (New Orleans Saints), Ted Ginn Jr. (Miami Dolphins) and Anthony Gonzalez (Indianapolis Colts) all leave.

Offensive lineman Doug Datish (Atlanta Falcons) and T.J. Downing (Arizona Cardinals) leave the Buckeyes depleted in the interior. Throw in wide receiver Roy Hall (Indianapolis Colts) and that leaves the whole offense is in question.

Obviously, fans are worried about the ‘07 offense.

Last year, the question mark was the defense, which returned only two starters and lost stars OLB A.J. Hawk, SS Donte Whitner, OLB Bobby Carpenter, CB Aston Youboty, ILB Anthony Schlegel and FS Nate Salley to the NFL draft.

The Buckeyes still opened the season #1 in rankings. This year they are ranked more in the middle of the Top 25.

Phil Steele’s College Football Preview has the Buckeyes ranked #15 in top 25.

The Buckeyes are not topping the list in the Big Ten either. My two favorite sources (Phil Steele and Sporting News) have the Buckeyes ranked third and fourth in the preseason Big Ten standings. Phil Steele has the Buckeyes behind Michigan and Penn State. Sporting News has OSU behind Michigan, Wisconsin and Penn State. During Big Ten Media Day someone asked Jim Tressel what he thought about being ranked third in the Big Ten.

“I think it shows great respected for our program, Tressel said. “We lost a bunch of guys and we still get picked at that level.”

Tressel also expressed that he thought that Big Ten would be much tougher this year.

Also, another topic was brought up on media day. It is a fan favorite in Buckeye country. This past January, every fan had to come up with a reason for losing the National Championship. The best one we could come up with, was that we had too long of a break in between our last game and the BCS title game.

“We had 44 days for a bowl game one year and 43 days to prepare for a championship game a couple years ago. Nothing was said about that being a disadvantage,” Tressel said. “And then, this one being 50 or so, it really isn’t a reason why we lost.”

The other popular excuse was that the Buckeyes were slower than the Gators. Actually the story was, that the whole Big Ten was slower than the SEC. Players from the SEC are much faster- blah, blah, blah. At the time, I was working in Atlanta, Ga., home of the SEC Championship Game, and I heard that reasoning all day every day.

“I think they were both pretty fast,” Tressel told ESPN.com . . “There’s no question Florida was a fast team, and Ohio State was a fast team. The first play of the game [Ginn’s 93-yard kickoff return for a touchdown], it looked like we had the fastest guy in the world.”

Much of the Florida roster was made up of Ron Zook’s (Illinois current head coach) recruits.

“In my mind, there isn’t any difference,” Zook told ESPN.com . “We have every bit the speed that they do. In my mind, there is no question that this league can compete against anyone in the country.”

Sure the Big Ten wasn’t that good in ‘06 and the SEC usually fields better teams. However, here is a basic example of how the SEC isn’t that much different than the Big Ten.

Take the 10 commitments (not counting the kicker) in the 2008 recruiting class for Ohio State: According to Scout.com seven of the 10 OSU commits turned down an offer from at least one SEC school. Also, Scout.com doesn’t have the information of all the offers made to players. For example, Cameron Heyward, of the 2007 OSU recruiting class, had offers from over 40 programs. Scout.com had Heyward receiving only four (from Ohio State, Florida, Georgia and LSU).