Ohio State’s Dee Miller says the Buckeyes’ strong offensive performance last week all revolved around Ray Small, and to expect a more conservative Jim Tressel vs. Iowa.
I thought the way Jim Tessel called his offensive plays wasn’t expected. I think he did a great job of divvying up the ball between Brandon Saine and Boom Herron. The fullback, Zach Boren, was a beast. The offensive line wasn’t zone blocking. They were firing off the ball.
That’s different than what we’ve been doing. I think it shows that we work.
I don’t think a lot of people are talking about it, but the catapult was Ray Small’s punt returns. They made it easy for Tressel to be more creative.
If Small didn’t make the plays he did, I think it would’ve been a different ball game. I think we might have won, but I don’t think it would’ve been as convincingly. Every time we gained momentum, it had something to do with Ray Small.
I think Tressel called the game he did because of the field position. I think Ray Small allowed coach Tressel to be aggressive and think outside his comfort zone because of the field zone.
Tressel Ball revolves around field position, and Ray Small allowed him to have great field position many times. Tressel always has things up his sleeve. It just depends on field position.
Coach Tressel is a smart coach. We heard earlier in the year the offense has more than 100 plays. But we never show them. Maybe it’s because we didn’t have the good field position in the past to show them.
Do I think Tressel is going to evolve into something because of last weekend? No. I think he just wanted to something different because of all the hype Penn State’s defense had.
Granted, I’m not ready to put Penn State on a pedestal. They really haven’t played anybody. They played somebody in Iowa and got beat. But for whatever reason, they were ranked higher than us.
If Ricky Stanzi was playing for Iowa this week, I think you’d see the creative OSU offense. Right now, we’re at an advantage. I think we’ll do what we’ve done in the past — get good field position, make field goals, limit turnovers and rely on the defense.
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A star receiver for the Buckeyes from 1995-98, Dee Miller now works in insurance for State Farm.
Got a question or comment? E-mail him here
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