Mailbag question: Ohio State and Oregon (future Michigan)
GBMW,
I am sure you guys watched the Rose bowl and saw how Ohio State dominated Oregon with "TOP" and also the Ohio State lines seemed to really take over.
Hopefully this is not a continuing thing we see since so many people, going into this game, said Oregon is the Michigan future or what Michigan will look like. Honestly it looked like what we have right now.
Oregon is, or was, a high scoring team, but when they played a strong defensive team like Ohio State they got shut down. A team can have a strong offense, but this does no good if you cannot score against a strong defense.
Frank
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Thanks for the question/comment.
It does not matter what offense a team uses, it is still about winning the battle in the trenches. Ninety percent of the time, or even more, the team that controls the line of scrimmage will win the football game.
Ohio State's defensive line and linebackers were just outstanding, the defensive tackles got excellent penetration and this allowed the defensive ends and outside linebackers to stay home. If a team cannot, or will not, block people effectively you will be very ineffective on offense.
A team can be the fastest, most skilled, team in history and if the players do not block people, the speed and skill will not matter. Football is a simple game; the team that blocks and tackles the best wins a large majority of the time.
We do not buy much into this is the Ohio State vs. Michigan in the future argument. Every game is different and different personnel means different match ups. What we took out of this game is that Ohio State was worried about Oregon scoring points and not too worried about Michigan scoring points.
Coach Tressel's game plan illustrated this by how much more open his playbook was for the Oregon bowl game. For the Michigan game Tressel knew that he did not have to get risky, especially with how Tate Forcier was a turnover machine in "The Game" this past year.
Written by GBMW Staff
Go Blue -- Wear Maize!
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