Like many others I am still dumbfounded by this weekend's debacle so I'm going to do my best to get past this and move on looking forward to what honestly looks to be (from a variety of standpoints) a dream season next year.  That being said...

I usually stand up for this Staff through thick and thin but what I saw transpire last week is disturbing at best.  To echo Monroe's reminder...I still don't believe anyone has the real scoop on the underlying issues with Boo's internship and until we do I won't even bother responding to chat board assumptions.

Let's assume for the sake of argument though, that what went down did indeed warrant a benching (which is quite obviously what we saw).  IF that was the case, the way this staff handled all of the related logistics was nothing short of embarrassing.  If you're going to bench Boo, then I agree with previous posts...You simply can NOT let the game get out of hand by making it obvious to anyone watching that you can put as many defenders in the box as you want to.  When Phil threw that first INT and we saw that the rotation wasn't going to change, I knew the game was over.

If we knew ahead of time that Boo's playing time was slated to be restricted, it falls to the coaching staff to put together a game plan that at least appears to be balanced.  Obviously, the staff committed to redshirting Tyler midway through the season.  From everything I've heard though, Snyder has quite an arm.  We are a Division I program and there's no reason we shouldn't be able to have a kid ready to run at least a limited playbook.  OUr running game has been shown to be extremely volatile when the threat of the pass is present.  Considering the talent we have at receiver, there is quite simply no excuse in my mind for closing up shop before the first snap regardless of your opponent.

This doesn't mean the outcome of the game would have changed because we were also clearly not prepared for the pace of Troy's offense, but I firmly believe a National stage embarrassment could easily have been avoided.

In retrospect, it's pretty clear this was a bad match-up for OUr D to begin with.  I'm not saying we should have turned down the bid but the staff had to know we'd need to put up some significant point production to keep this close.  We needed an out of the box game plan and it looked to me like we were hurt (yet again) by an attempt to fulfill promises to, and maintain the psyche of, a valuable athlete transfer.  I just hope it didn’t damage other recruiting efforts…

Last Edited: 12/20/2010 10:02:56 AM by Bobcat36

Speaking of Bates limping off the field, I'm sure it was tough to see live but he lost footing making a cut.  I saw a number of other Ohio players running tentatively and looking awkward when changing direction as well.  Did anyone else notice this?  Is it possible we were ill prepared from a footwear perspective?

Last Edited: 12/20/2010 10:31:19 AM by Bobcat36