Football
The-Ozone Note and Quotebook - Part II
By John Porentas
Ted Ginn: There is no need for a clever
title for a section on Ted Ginn. Mention Ginn's name, and Buckeye
fans are interested.
Ginn wowed them in the Michigan game with a record-setting
82 yard punt return and just for good measure, added four receptions
for 90 yards. The list of accomplishments that resulted from Ginn's
day against the Wolverines is lengthy.
* Ginn's TD return was the fourth of the season for
Ginn, setting an Ohio State and Big Ten record for most punt returns
for touchdowns in a single season and tying the NCAA record for touchdowns
on punt returns in a single season.
* Ginn became the third player in NCAA history to return four punts
for touchdowns, tying David Allen of Kansas State (1998) and Golden
Richards of BYU (1971)
* In Ohio State annals, Ginn surpassed Jeff Graham (1989-91) and
Garcia Lane (1981-83). Graham and Lane each had three TD returns for
their careers.
* Ginn also tops the Big Ten record book, passing Iowa's Tim Dwight
(1997), Gene Derricotte of Michigan (1947) and Ira Matthews of Wisconsin
(1976).
* Ginn's 82-yard TD return is the fourth longest in Ohio State history.
Former Buckeye Robert Demmel holds the record at 87 yards in 1950
vs. Iowa. The 82-yard return marked Ginn's sixth play of more than
50 yards this season.
* Ginn's punt return was the Buckeyes' fifth punt return to go for
a touchdown this season. Upping the school record, which the Buckeyes
set when Ginn returned a punt for 60 yards against Michigan State.
Ohio State had three punt returns for scores in 1973, 1979, 1983 and
1998.
* Ginn's 82-yard punt return is the longest play allowed by Michigan
this season and the first Buckeye punt return for a touchdown vs.
Michigan since 1971, when Tom Campana took a U-M punt back 85 yards.
What's Ginn's reaction to all this?
"Me being a freshmen, I'm overwhelmed," he
said after the Michigan game.
"Me coming in as a freshmen and seeing everybody
pick me up and just treat me like God, it was just great. On the national
level, I just try to make it better for my seniors, because my seniors
want to go out with gold pants and they want to beat Michigan. I just
played for them. I've still got four, four more years to play, or
three, however it takes, and I just want to make my seniors happy,"
Ginn said.
Ted Ginn the wide receiver and punt returner is not
the only Ted Ginn to earn the respect and admiration of OSU Head Coach
Jim Tressel. Ted's dad, Cleveland Glennville Head Football Coach Ted
Ginn Sr., is also high on Tressel's admiration list.
"Ted Ginn Sr. I've knows for many, many years when
young Ted was just knee high,' said Tressel.
"He's a guy who you admire for what he's done for
that community. He's given all those kids the guidance that if you
do things the right way good things will happen for you, but it's
going to be rough. That's why Troy and Teddy and Pierre (Woods of
Michigan) and Curtis (Terry) and the guys who were in that game today,
that's why they are where they are doing what they're doing, because
Ted Sr. is very demanding. He's made an impact where he is,"
said Tressel.
Tressel said that Ted Jr.'s role with the Buckeyes will
most likely grow as his career with the Buckeyes progresses.
"He's very capable. His dad said, 'Work him, you're
not working him enough,' and he reminds me that he has to run the
200 hurdles and the 400 meters the next event. He said, 'I wouldn't
do it to any other child, but don't worry about doing it to my child.'
I'm sure he'll have a chance to do lots of things in the future.
Game Plans: The Buckeyes seemed to
have an effective game plan on offense from the first snap against
the Wolverines. Jim Tressel said his offensive brain trust thought
they saw some things they could exploit in the Wolverine defense.
"We felt we could stretch them and hit some seams,"
said Tressel.
"We didn't think in some of their man coverage
schemes they'd hold up, if we had time. We liked some of our match-ups,
and we really felt that our quarterback run stuff was going to be
difficult for them. I don't know how many yards we got, but it was
decent," Tressel said.
Jim Bollman said the Buckeyes saw other nuances in the
Wolverine defense that OSU tried to exploit.
"We ran isolation, the most elementary play that
there is," said Bollman.
"A lot of times it was OK. It wasn't as consistent
the second half as we would have liked, but it was pretty good for
the game. They came out and played us a lot in their odd front and
both guards were uncovered and that gave us a little bit of room to
run that."
Bollman added that Michigan's game plan to not put a
hard rush on Smith also helped the Buckeye cause.
"There were times they were going to make him throw
the ball and not put very much heat on him," said Bollman.
"Sometimes there was a three-man rush. That happened
on the first touchdown pass. There was only a three-man rush so he
had all day to throw the ball."
Ohio State allowed zero sacks by Michigan Saturday,
marking the first time this season and since the Northwestern win
in 2003.
The game is the first time Ohio State has not allowed a Michigan sack
in a contest since 1990, a 16-13 U-M win.
Game Plans, Part II: This is part two
of the Note and Quotebook, so why not a Part II on the game plans,
this one on the defense.
The Wolverines moved almost at will on their first two
possessions against the Buckeyes, but began to have difficulty moving
the football after their second scoring drive.
"Sometimes you spar a little bit and figure out
where they're going and what they're doing and our defense, I think,
got a handle on things," said Tressel.
"We got after them a little bit. We sent some extra
people so they had to single-up our ends, and they got the job done,"
said OSU defensive coordinator Mark Snyder.
"They were running their lead play,
their iso play, the opposite direction that we had practiced or that
they had run tendency-wise, so where we had our down safety, our eighth
hat in the box, was incorrect.
"The screen pass, they did a great
job there, throwing it on first down, the tendency was second or third
down. When they did run the lead iso, what we practiced all week,
it was out of a different formation, so again our scheme was not set
up properly. We got all those fixed and the kids just adjusted and
executed phenomenal," said Snyder.
"You could see that they were just
bringing more pressure (as the game went on)," said Michigan
quarterback Chad Henne.
"In the beginning they didn't bring
as much pressure, but then the just decided to bring more pressure."
"They were bringing guys from everywhere,
so I think we were just a little confused," Henne said.
The 12th Man: A
sell-out crowd of 105,456 attended the game Saturday. The crowd is
the second largest in Ohio Stadium history, falling shy of the record
of 105,539 by just 83 souls. For the most part, they weren't just
there sitting on their hands. They were loud.
"It was hostile but that's what we expected,"
said Michigan defensive back Marlon Jackson.
"We didn't expect anything else. We knew it was
going to be this way. We just didn't respond well."
"I know it (the crowd) affected the quarterback
a lot," said OSU cornerback Ashton Youboty.
"I remember one three-step drop he didn't know
what coverage we were in and he threw it almost right to me."
"They had an effect on the defense,"
said OSU linebacker Bobby Carpenter.
"They were so loud, we were trying
to make checks all day on some of the blitz schemes and stuff, and
a couple of times we couldn't hear and we weren't on the same page.
I don't think they were either. The crowd was exceptional today. I
love playing in the Horseshoe. I'm going to miss it after next year,"
Carpenter said.
"The crowd was really into it,"
said OSU center Nick Mangold.
"They were awesome. When we walked
into St. John for skull session the place was packed to capacity.
If you needed anything else (to fire you up), that was it right there.
That crowd at St. John was just for the band and to see us walk through,
that was amazing. They were really a 12th man."
The Buckeyes have played before sellout crowds in all 11 games this
season.
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