[NU Sports] Thoughts about OSU

[Jeff Beamsley]

Just spent a little bit looking at the play by play of NU's second half
against Michigan.  You have to figure that OSU is hoping to have the same
sort of success.
 
Turns out that it wasn't rocket science.  Three of our three-and-out's
started with incomplete passes on first down.  You can't do much about the
ones that were the result of coverage or a good pass rush, but that puts all
that much more pressure on our receivers to catch everything that comes
close to them.  Three other series that stalled were from holding penalties
on first or second down that put us behind the chains and in obvious passing
down situations.  The couple of plays where we ran on first down, we got
good yardage but didn't have very many successful second or third down
running plays again because they were often in long yardage situations.
 
We can't let OSU make us a one dimensional team like Michigan did.  Don't
know whether or not the O line is going to be able to establish the run, but
we have to be able to complete enough passes on first down to open up the
run and get their defenders out of the box and dropping into pass coverage.
I don't think that we will have any more success getting to the corner on
these guys than we did with Michigan.  So if we are going to have any hope
of getting the run going, it is going have to start between the tackles.
When we are able to get their defense to respect the pass, our O line has to
be able to execute their blocks against their D line.  When we run on first
down we have to pick up enough positive yards so that the run remains an
option on second and third down.  We also have eliminate offensive
turnovers.  Baez has to be patient and take what the defense is giving us.
OSU has been living off of points scored by their defense and typically
those have been game changing scores for them.   
 
It's going to be tough because OSU has the best pass and run defense in the
conference.
 
Hopefully we can hang around as we did with Iowa and pull something off at
the end.  I'm sure that OSU is going to want to get us a couple of scores
down early, as Michigan did, and then just play field position, dare us to
beat them with the pass, and try to score some points on turnovers..
 
Jeff