Maryland fans were classless at the Orange bowl. They went around yelling 'Hey !! YOU SUCK !!' That was their cheer in the game too. We were like, WTF ? Don't they know an ass kicking is on the schedule tonite ? The Gators routed 'em in the first half, and a bunch of Twerps wanted to fight at halftime, there was damn near a riot by the concession. After the game a couple more got mouthy with me by my truck. I looked at them, smiled, and said 'My badge is in my wallet and my gun is under the seat. Drive carefully through the snow and ice on your way home.' I never saw a guy bitch up and sober up so fast in my life, haha.

Speedofsand;483099 wrote:Maryland fans were classless at the Orange bowl. They went around yelling 'Hey !! YOU SUCK !!' That was their cheer in the game too. We were like, WTF ? Don't they know an ass kicking is on the schedule tonite ? The Gators routed 'em in the first half, and a bunch of Twerps wanted to fight at halftime, there was damn near a riot by the concession. After the game a couple more got mouthy with me by my truck. I looked at them, smiled, and said 'My badge is in my wallet and my gun is under the seat. Drive carefully through the snow and ice on your way home.' I never saw a guy bitch up and sober up so fast in my life, haha.

lol, sounds like Maryland fans. As a Maryland grad, (grad school), I went to some football and basketball games. They fans are awful. I remember my first year, WVU came to Maryland and I saw 3 fights lol.

ptown_trojans_1;483095 wrote:Both of you are right lol.
OSU played solid defense, but made the plays when it counted and forced Miami to make mistakes. That is what good teams do, force mistakes and capitalize on them. Miami did move the ball through the air in some spots. But, they had no running game at all during the game. OSU's front 4 dominated the line. But, Miami did exploit some holes in the OSU secondary.

Also, Miami made some nice plays on defense to slow down the Buckeyes in spots, getting pressure on Pryor to force him into bad throws. Pryor's talent did come through, but he wasn't stellar and it was Miami's defensive ends that deserve some credit for that. Miami's secondary wasn't awful, just spotty. Although, OSU did make some dumb penalties too, especially in the red zone.

It could have been worse yes, but it wasn't. It was the way it should be, spread was 9.5.

Not too be picky, but I will be, by gametime the spread was 8.5. I suppose it depends what site you are looking at, but I believe Vegas was 8-8.5

dwccrew;483252 wrote:Not too be picky, but I will be, by gametime the spread was 8.5. I suppose it depends what site you are looking at, but I believe Vegas was 8-8.5

Yeah, my buddy uses Bodong and it was 9.5.

Score was about what I expected, spread wise. I expected miami to play a bit better, and OSU not to make the miscues on ST's obviously.

Special teams play happen but interceptions don't, right? You can't say, "Take away the 2 kick returns and the score is 36-7", but you can say, "If Harris doesn't throw a pick and instead throws a TD in the red zone the score is 36-31".

The difference is, without the returns, what are the chances Miami scores on those possessions if they only get 10 or 15 yards on the return? Not good, their offense only scored one touchdown all game. If you take away Harris' picks and instead Miami punts those possessions, the Buckeyes still score on some (if not all) of them because they moved the ball all game on Miami's defense.

These what if games are idiotic. Anyone can see that Miami needed those special teams breakdowns to stay within 12 points, where Ohio State didn't need the interceptions to score on Miami.

ohiotiger33;483074 wrote:I saw two picks in the red zone for Miami. So that is 14 possible points. Not taking credit from OSU, and not saying that they weren't the better team by any means. But when people say, OSU could have killed Miami even worse, you have to take the other side to. You have to have watched Miami the last few years to really get it. They have been so Jekyll and Hyde. It basically depends on whether or not they throw picks or not. But when they don't the rest of the team plays better.

Correct, OSU did have two picks in the red zone that potentially cost Miami 14 points. OSU also gave up two special teams touchdowns.

The reason we can justifiably say that OSU could have won by a lot more, and we can't justifiably say that the game could have been a lot closer, is because OSU's miscues were more uncharacteristic than Miami's.

OSU had only given up four kickoff return TD's and zero punt return TD's in nice seasons under Jim Tressel. They gave gave up one of each in a game for the first time ever. Jacory Harris on the other hand threw 17 interceptions last season, while Ohio State was second in the nation last year grabbing 24 picks.

Since Miami's two returns are more out-of-the-ordinary than OSU's two red zone picks, any reasonable person can say that their plays are more likely to have not normally happened than OSU's. Therefore we can determine that it was more likely, and we can more reasonably say, that OSU could have won this game by much more, than we could say that this game could have been much closer.