What a football weekend in Ohio! Ohio State goes to the BCS Championship Game for the second time in five years by beating Michigan 42-39. Cincinnati ended Rutgers undefeated season. Probably no one in Cleveland really cares, but the Bengals beat the Saints yesterday. The only thing that kept the weekend from being perfect was the Browns’ offense which couldn’t produce a touchdown in a 24-20 loss Sunday afternoon at Browns Stadium.
Let’s handle the good news first. The Buckeyes offense appears to be unstoppable. Michigan’s defense has been excellent all year, but they had no answer for all of the OSU weapons. The Bucks even had two TD runs of over 50 yards against a Wolverine squad that allowed an average of 29 yards per game. The Wolves tried to take away Ted Ginn Jr. and Anthony Gonzalez, so Troy Smith (who sealed up the Heisman Trophy) went to Brian Robiske, Roy Hall, and Brian Hartline for big plays. Even Chris Wells, thought to be a non factor for the game because of fumbling problems ripped off a long touchdown run.
Think about it. Ohio State scored 42 points AND turned it over 3 times, once when they were driving for a score. That’s how dominating the Buckeye attack is.
On defense, OSU could not get the turnovers it has feasted off of all season and you saw the result. They had problems stopping Mike Hart, and thankfully Lloyd Carr did not give it to Hart more often. I still don’t understand why Michigan didn’t run on the 3rd and 1 in the third quarter, instead of having Chad Henne throw a long pass that was almost intercepted. That call allowed Ohio State to regroup.
Now for what happened downtown yesterday. The difference in the Browns-Steelers game was that the Pittsburgh offense can score in the red zone and the Browns could not. Cleveland dominated the game for the first three quarters, but could only put 10 points on the board. Charlie Frye and company only put up two field goals for the contest. That’s not enough.
The new offense under Jeff Davidson still has some things to work on, and I think they will. The Browns do move the ball better than they did under Maurice Carthon, but they need to improve when they get it close. Based on the progress we have seen in the last four games, I think they will get that taken care of.
The defense couldn’t come up with the big stop in the 4th quarter, either. In fact, Pittsburgh had 19 first downs in the last period yesterday alone. That’s an incredible number. After making big play after big play in the first three quarters, it didn’t happen late in the game. Ben Roethlisberger completed huge passes the whole time, and the Browns’ could not get enough pressure on him. They were afraid to blitz, and with plenty of time, the Steelers QB just sat back there and picked out a target. The coaching staff got a little bit too conservative on both sides of the ball late in the game. Let’s hope they learn from that.
Still, the Browns are getting better. This defeat was tougher to take than the 41-0 pasting last Christmas Eve because of the effort the squad put forward. I still say there is plenty to like on this football team. Yesterday, we saw that we want to see more of Jason Wright at running back. He hit the holes faster than Reuben Droughns and showed toughness fighting for extra yardage. He should definitely get more carries the rest of the season. Frye is still getting sacked too much, but he is starting to get rid of the ball instead of giving up costly turnovers. That’s the progression of a young quarterback.
The talent level on the Browns is definitely growing. However, it needs to start translating into victories. The fans won’t be happy until it does.
JD
Cleveland Sports Perspective 