#1 Ohio State vs Virginia Tech (ESPN)

[Redwood Forrest]

tOSU did not play very well to me. Maybe they believe the preseason hype? I expect they will turn it up now.

 

[rgw]

Here's why Michigan can upset them this year... Have you seen their schedule as well? They can drop 2 more games.. or win all of it. It's not exactly the strongest schedule... Plus... Teams tend to get even better or worse at the end of the season, and with their coach they have now, They will get better throughout the season and can get hot... If they beat Michigan State... Uhoh... I'm just telling you... In that conference... Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State... They all have to play against each other.. I suspect all of them will come out with a loss ... I got a feeling it will happen..

I'm not sure this explains how in the heck that terrible Michigan team is gonna beat OSU. From the looks of Michigan against Utah last week, Michigan beating OSU would be like 2012 Auburn beating Alabama. They're terrible looking so far...one game but I don't think anyone has really high expectations for Michigan this year beyond honeymoon period hype with Harbaugh. Michigan State can legitimately beat Ohio State without any assistance. There is a good chance Sparty joins the "favorites" group if they can win at home against Oregon this weekend.

Ohio State's schedule has zero room for slip-up but there is only one team that can beat them. The Buckeyes are basically playing against themselves in the other 10 remaining games.

 

[Matt0424]

tOSU has an easy schedule, but when they hit their toughest stretch in November, that Albatross of being #1 will be getting really heavy.

I don't expect them to make it out undefeated, but they definitely looked the part of #1 last night.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

 

[CrimsonForce]

Oh, I think that by mid-season ESPN will seriously be comparing this year`s tOSU to the all-time great teams of college football. Anybody but us !!

Kinda like they did with that LSU team in 2011. How did that work out?

 

[Tideflyer]

Kinda like they did with that LSU team in 2011. How did that work out?

Guess I should have put my original post in blue font.

 

[TiderJack]

Kenyon Drake disagrees with this statement.

I was going to say the same.

 

[TideEngineer08]

From what I saw, Ohio State has a lot of great individual talent, but they are not a great team yet. And I'm still not certain they have the biggest collection of talent in the country, either. But they got hot at the right time last year and ESPN needed someone other than an SEC team to gush about so here we are.

But this is just the first week. The problem for OSU is, they don't play anyone with a pulse this year until Michigan State. Whereas Alabama is going to know how well they are improving (because we play an extremely tough schedule), OSU won't. Like Florida State last year, who completely took half the games off each week and didn't start playing until the second half. They became accustomed to that and when they ran into Oregon, that wasn't enough.

I think chances are Ohio State is going 13-0 and winning the Big Ten. They are head and shoulders above that league (even Michigan State). We'll see what happens come playoff time.

 

[TideMan09]

Yup & we were pulling starters out early in the 3rd as well..I bet Wisky isn't used to that happening to them..

Yah, they won by 18 points over an unranked team, Bama won by 18 over the #20 team in the country. And Bama never trailed...

 

[TideMom2Boys]

Osu looked very good but the knee-jerk praise after one game against a likely mediocre team is a bit overboard.

Wasn't it last year that they anointed the A&M QB as the Heisman winner. They always have knee jerk reactions.

 

[KrAzY3]

Yah, they won by 18 points over an unranked team, Bama won by 18 over the #20 team in the country. And Bama never trailed...

I guess part of the hype is that they suffered a pretty ugly loss to VT last year while they blasted Wisconsin.

If nothing else, we saw how far a talented team that doesn't lose starters can come. VT was 7-6, including a 35-21 win at Ohio State. Their best win, other than Ohio State was Duke... let that sink in.

But the other Ohio State, the post mulligan, let's pretend they didn't completely suck against VT at home Ohio State, they demolished an 11-3 Wisconsin team 59-0. As people have noted though, that game got out of hand. It's kind of like Alabama's 59-0 against Texas A&M as impressive as that was, I think we all know that game could be played again and be a fair bit closer.

I think the thing that everyone is having trouble reconciling is the good Ohio State/bad Ohio State from last year. The team that got embarrassed at home by VT, the team that looked mediocre against Navy, the team that needed two overtimes and a bad call to beat Penn State, and the team that was a wrecking ball in their last three games.

I think part of it is the QB and no, not just that he was an improvement. I think in particular the first two games, the other teams just didn't know what to do with him.

The difference this year is Ohio State isn't likely to be able to completely surprise people at QB. Everyone knows to respect the position, everyone knows who they have, they can switch things around some but teams will understand that they can both run and pass from the QB position. The other thing is, Alabama got beat up (likely to happen again) while Ohio State's only meaningful injury turned out to help them. Is that going to happen again? Is Ohio State going to only get better a second year in a row?

Their schedule won't be an obstacle, that's for sure. They will almost have to try to lose. Alabama will have plenty of chances to lose, so even if I like Alabama's chances in a rematch (since when has Saban been bettered coming off a loss in a rematch?), Ohio State is coasting and Alabama is going uphill.

 

[CB4]

One final thought. This thread absolutely rocked last night. I haven't laugh so much during an in-game thread in a long, long time.

Thanks to all that contributed.