My roommates were just talking about the Boneheaded Plays of the Year for Ohio State. Here's our tentative list.

Offensive-
Hard to narrow down just one, but it probably has to be one of Pryor's many turnovers during the Purdue game. One that sticks out to me is when Ohio State was in the middle of their comeback, the defense gets a turnover, Pryor runs out onto the field and promptly throws 30 yd pass straight up into the air, into coverage that gets picked.

Defensive-
No question here, we all agreed. Worthington's facemask penalty during Purdue's final drive

Coaching-
Toss up between kicking the FG at the 1 against USC or taking the penalty (in lieu of the FG), punting, and getting a net of 25ish yds; also against USC

What about Pryor's pick against USC when he hit the linebacker right in the chest ?

BlueDevil11 wrote: What about Pryor's pick against USC when he hit the linebacker right in the chest ?

Forgot about that one. Good call.

jordo212000 wrote: My roommates were just talking about the Boneheaded Plays of the Year for Ohio State. Here's our tentative list.

Offensive-
Hard to narrow down just one, but it probably has to be one of Pryor's many turnovers during the Purdue game. One that sticks out to me is when Ohio State was in the middle of their comeback, the defense gets a turnover, Pryor runs out onto the field and promptly throws 30 yd pass straight up into the air, into coverage that gets picked.

Defensive-
No question here, we all agreed. Worthington's facemask penalty during Purdue's final drive

Coaching-
Toss up between kicking the FG at the 1 against USC or taking the penalty (in lieu of the FG), punting, and getting a net of 25ish yds; also against USC

No love for Tressel's pathetic clock management against USC at the end of the first half that allowed USC to score before halftime?

Also, another nomination for boneheaded defensive plays is Nate Williams lining up offsides against Iowa, despite having no impact on the actual play, that negated a pick-6 by Thaddeus Gibson and let Iowa hang around in the game.

Another one was the onside kick against New Mexico. There was no point. He was already going to win the game, and just wasted something he could've used in a bigger game.

How about boneheaded plays of the year for college football in general?

For coaching, I think we can unanimously agree on Les Miles' fine display on how not to execute a two minute drill against Ole Miss.

Special Teams-every other time Ray Small fielded a punt? It's either feast or famine with him, you hold your breath every time they punt it to him, hopin he doesn't drop it

Benny The Jet wrote: Special Teams-every other time Ray Small fielded a punt? It's either feast or famine with him, you hold your breath every time they punt it to him, hopin he doesn't drop it

How does he keep that job? He has had to have muffed at least 5 punts this year.

trep14 wrote: How about boneheaded plays of the year for college football in general?

For coaching, I think we can unanimously agree on Les Miles' fine display on how not to execute a two minute drill against Ole Miss.

I'd say that Les Miles was praying more than he's ever prayed that Colt McCoy's thrown away pass against Nebraska would not have been overturned. That certainly would have gotten him off the hook. You gotta love that D-bag McCoy after the game when he acted like he knew what he was doing all along.

Offense: Pryor's TD pass against Purdue when he rolled right and threw the ball up in the air to the opposite side of the field for a TD (pretty sure it was Purdue). I think Posey caught it. It was probably one of the worst decisions and passes I've ever seen from a QB at this level. He did get away with it though.

Defense: Hard to say Worthington's facemask because it wasn't intentional. I'd say Kurt Colemans spear, that caused him to miss a game. Didn't hurt OSU in the grand scheme of things, but completely a boneheaded and dirty play.

Coaching: Not kicking the 50 yard FG against USC when your kicker drilled one from the same end against Navy just a week before.

jordo212000 wrote:

Benny The Jet wrote: Special Teams-every other time Ray Small fielded a punt? It's either feast or famine with him, you hold your breath every time they punt it to him, hopin he doesn't drop it

How does he keep that job? He has had to have muffed at least 5 punts this year.

I'm convinced that Ray Small has something on Tressel. Either he was given money, or knows something he shouldn't know. Because there is no other reason to explain why he is still on the team, let alone fielding punts.

thedynasty1998 wrote:
Defense: Hard to say Worthington's facemask because it wasn't intentional. I'd say Kurt Colemans spear, that caused him to miss a game. Didn't hurt OSU in the grand scheme of things, but completely a boneheaded and dirty play.

Maybe not intentional but in the great scheme of things it was a penalty that basically sealed Ohio State's fate. That's why it made the list. It was obvious too, as soon as he did it, it was clear that they were going to call a penalty and the party was over

thedynasty1998 wrote:
I'm convinced that Ray Small has something on Tressel. Either he was given money, or knows something he shouldn't know. Because there is no other reason to explain why he is still on the team, let alone fielding punts.

I have inside information :rolleyes: that Small has naked pictures of Tress

jordo212000 wrote:

Benny The Jet wrote: Special Teams-every other time Ray Small fielded a punt? It's either feast or famine with him, you hold your breath every time they punt it to him, hopin he doesn't drop it

How does he keep that job? He has had to have muffed at least 5 punts this year.

Ha, I have no idea...again it's either feast or famine for Ray. In fact, I was reading on ESPN.COM the All Big-10 team picked by the big-10 blog writer (who looks like the absolute definition of a nerd, if you've seen his picture, you know the guy I'm talkin about) and he picked Small as 1st team PR. Little sketchy if you ask me. Here's the link.
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/8008/espn-coms-all-big-ten-team[url]http://[/url]

Speaking of punting, what happened to John Thoma this year? He was an absolute monster punting the ball early the season. Through the first few games he was netting nearly 45 yards a punt, only had one positive return against him, and had over 50% of his kicks downed inside the 20. Then something happened in the second half of the season and he couldn't kick it 40 yards. What in the world happened there?

krambman wrote: Through the first few games he was netting nearly 45 years a punt,

Well Jesus, I don't see a problem with his punting if he's punting by light years! ha

jordo212000 wrote:

thedynasty1998 wrote:
I'm convinced that Ray Small has something on Tressel. Either he was given money, or knows something he shouldn't know. Because there is no other reason to explain why he is still on the team, let alone fielding punts.

I have inside information :rolleyes: that Small has naked pictures of Tress

Is he with one Nicholas Mangold in said picture?

krambman wrote: Speaking of punting, what happened to John Thoma this year? He was an absolute monster punting the ball early the season. Through the first few games he was netting nearly 45 years a punt, only had one positive return against him, and had over 50% of his kicks downed inside the 20. Then something happened in the second half of the season and he couldn't kick it 40 yards. What in the world happened there?

I remember a few, keyword few, good punts that Thoma had this season, but for the most part I remember sucking pretty hard. Especially down the home stretch. I think it is obvious why he is in his 1st year of starting despite the fact that he is a senior

Benny The Jet wrote: Special Teams-every other time Ray Small fielded a punt? It's either feast or famine with him, you hold your breath every time they punt it to him, hopin he doesn't drop it

Oh, goodness, tell me something I don't know.

It's absolutely scary when we get punted to, and sometimes I just want to close my eyes in hopes that it's not muffed.

Benny The Jet wrote:

krambman wrote: Through the first few games he was netting nearly 45 years a punt,

Well Jesus, I don't see a problem with his punting if he's punting by light years! ha

I fixed it.

will we ever see buchanon kick? I thought he was next in line for the kicking gig then pettrey goes down and barclay comes out of nowhere.

jordo212000 wrote:

krambman wrote: Speaking of punting, what happened to John Thoma this year? He was an absolute monster punting the ball early the season. Through the first few games he was netting nearly 45 years a punt, only had one positive return against him, and had over 50% of his kicks downed inside the 20. Then something happened in the second half of the season and he couldn't kick it 40 yards. What in the world happened there?

I remember a few, keyword few, good punts that Thoma had this season, but for the most part I remember sucking pretty hard. Especially down the home stretch. I think it is obvious why he is in his 1st year of starting despite the fact that he is a senior

Ok, so I just went back and looked at the numbers, because like I said, I thought that he really tailed off midway through the season. After looking at it, he did trail off a bit, but not by much. If you look at the numbers, he actually had an excellent season for a punter.

Let's look at the numbers.

Games: 11 (did not play against Toledo because of the Flu)
Punts: 55
Total Yards: 2069
Average: 37.5 ypp
Punts Downed Inside 20: 19 (34.5%)
Touchbacks: 5 (9%)
Returns: 7 (13%)
Return Yards: 18 (2.6 yard average)

So, he averaged nearly 38 yards a punt while having almost 35% of his punts downed inside the 20. 83% of his punts weren't returned at all, and those that were only gained 18 total return yards all season. Yes, things did trail off a bit in the second half of the season. In his first 6 games he averaged 39.1 ypp, had 11 downed inside the 20 to only 1 TB, and in his final five games he averaged 36.3 ypp and had 8 downed inside the 20 to 4 TB. So, he lost about 3 yards per punt late in the season, but it was colder and many of those games were on the road.

Overall, even though he may not have had any spectacularly memorable punts, he was very consistent and a field position monster. To only have 7 of 55 punts returned and for only 18 yards is quite remarkable.

krambman wrote:

jordo212000 wrote:

krambman wrote: Speaking of punting, what happened to John Thoma this year? He was an absolute monster punting the ball early the season. Through the first few games he was netting nearly 45 years a punt, only had one positive return against him, and had over 50% of his kicks downed inside the 20. Then something happened in the second half of the season and he couldn't kick it 40 yards. What in the world happened there?

I remember a few, keyword few, good punts that Thoma had this season, but for the most part I remember sucking pretty hard. Especially down the home stretch. I think it is obvious why he is in his 1st year of starting despite the fact that he is a senior

Ok, so I just went back and looked at the numbers, because like I said, I thought that he really tailed off midway through the season. After looking at it, he did trail off a bit, but not by much. If you look at the numbers, he actually had an excellent season for a punter.

Let's look at the numbers.

Games: 11 (did not play against Toledo because of the Flu)
Punts: 55
Total Yards: 2069
Average: 37.5 ypp
Punts Downed Inside 20: 19 (34.5%)
Touchbacks: 5 (9%)
Returns: 7 (13%)
Return Yards: 18 (2.6 yard average)

So, he averaged nearly 38 yards a punt while having almost 35% of his punts downed inside the 20. 83% of his punts weren't returned at all, and those that were only gained 18 total return yards all season. Yes, things did trail off a bit in the second half of the season. In his first 6 games he averaged 39.1 ypp, had 11 downed inside the 20 to only 1 TB, and in his final five games he averaged 36.3 ypp and had 8 downed inside the 20 to 4 TB. So, he lost about 3 yards per punt late in the season, but it was colder and many of those games were on the road.

Overall, even though he may not have had any spectacularly memorable punts, he was very consistent and a field position monster. To only have 7 of 55 punts returned and for only 18 yards is quite remarkable.

Yeah, towards the end of the year he was very consistent...you could count on at least one shanked punt at some point in time during the game from John Thoma.

krambman wrote:

jordo212000 wrote:

krambman wrote: Speaking of punting, what happened to John Thoma this year? He was an absolute monster punting the ball early the season. Through the first few games he was netting nearly 45 years a punt, only had one positive return against him, and had over 50% of his kicks downed inside the 20. Then something happened in the second half of the season and he couldn't kick it 40 yards. What in the world happened there?

I remember a few, keyword few, good punts that Thoma had this season, but for the most part I remember sucking pretty hard. Especially down the home stretch. I think it is obvious why he is in his 1st year of starting despite the fact that he is a senior

Ok, so I just went back and looked at the numbers, because like I said, I thought that he really tailed off midway through the season. After looking at it, he did trail off a bit, but not by much. If you look at the numbers, he actually had an excellent season for a punter.

Let's look at the numbers.

Games: 11 (did not play against Toledo because of the Flu)
Punts: 55
Total Yards: 2069
Average: 37.5 ypp
Punts Downed Inside 20: 19 (34.5%)
Touchbacks: 5 (9%)
Returns: 7 (13%)
Return Yards: 18 (2.6 yard average)

So, he averaged nearly 38 yards a punt while having almost 35% of his punts downed inside the 20. 83% of his punts weren't returned at all, and those that were only gained 18 total return yards all season. Yes, things did trail off a bit in the second half of the season. In his first 6 games he averaged 39.1 ypp, had 11 downed inside the 20 to only 1 TB, and in his final five games he averaged 36.3 ypp and had 8 downed inside the 20 to 4 TB. So, he lost about 3 yards per punt late in the season, but it was colder and many of those games were on the road.

Overall, even though he may not have had any spectacularly memorable punts, he was very consistent and a field position monster. To only have 7 of 55 punts returned and for only 18 yards is quite remarkable.

Agreed he wasn't horrible, but you have to take those stats with a grain of salt. How many times would it be 4th and short from about the 40 or closer going in, and Tress decides to punt it inside the 20 instead of trying for it on 4th or a long field goal? Fact remains though, he did the job Tress asked the majority of the time.

37 yds per punt isn't all that good...

The leader avgs 48, and most guys are hovering around 43-45