Coach Jim Tressel received some unexpected gifts when both James Laurinaitis and Malcolm Jenkins decided to resist the pull of the NFL and return for their senior year.
It has created a wealth of depth at nearly every position, leaving the players and coaches to sail through spring with few questions to answer.
The Buckeyes return nine starters on each side of the ball, plus both the kicker and punter. They even have a ready-made replacement for Vernon Gholston, their biggest personnel loss who set a school record with 14 sacks. Lawrence Wilson, who missed all of last season after breaking his leg in the opener, was expected to put up the type of sack totals last year that Gholston did.
With so many positions already secured, the coaches were able to focus on the backfield, where the only real remaining question is who will play fullback in the fall. The Bucks rotated three players last year, but all have moved on. The only true fullback on the team, Jermil Martin, is a true freshman who doesn't arrive until August. That left the coaches rotating a plethora of linebackers and walk-ons, trying to get lucky.
From all the tryouts, the two most likely candidates appear to be linebacker Curtis Terry and walk-on Ryan Lukens. Terry also missed all of last season with an ankle injury and then spent the final two weeks of spring working with the offense. He received assurances from the coaching staff he'll still see time there, and he's still listed as the starter at outside linebacker.
"I still feel like a linebacker," Terry said, "but we need a fullback."
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I am on the Michigan boards today and I realized that per usual most of the threads showing on the main page were from Nutz fans. I come over to the Nutz boards and, what a surprise, most of the threads are downing Big Blue. Does it make you feel like real men to rib Michigan? It seems as if nothing else in life is worth doing to you. I really just want to tell you how unhealthy
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Buck fans not her to rile you all up I'll leave that for Cassells.
The odd thing about the BCS is you need strength of schedule to help your BCS score. This creates the dilema, do you root for UofM to have the best possible record for the end of the year showdown, or do you hope they lose every game knowing it may cost OSU a shot at a invite to the NC game?
in the "COOPER" funk. Now that the tables have been turned I am absolutely loving it! How many painful losses did we (BUCKEYE FANS) endure during the terrible COOPER era. I am so thankful that the team from "up north" (as Woody would always put it) is having a serious case of COOPER-EYE-TUS!
So this year Ohio State has 18 returning starters and their biggest rival is supposedly about as low as they've been and noone expects anything; which means they have nothing to lose and that makes teams very dangerous (look at Florida in the NCG we played). We have lost 2 consecutive NCG's to the same conference and still have yet to win a game in a bowl against that conference. W
Weownmichigan, he goes to every teams message boards and preaches about if you don't go to every football game for your team you aren't a true fan and you can't smack talk. Please tell me this guy is just a moron because it is rather pathetic if someone agrees with this guy. Also please take him back, we don't want him on the Florida boards anymore.
I had to read it twice. Dennis Dodd, against his homeristic biases believes Ohio State to be better than Georgia in the pre-season and has then ranked at #1. I can only imagine what Michican't fans are going to say now! LOL The haters and zealots are going to come out of the woodwork and crawl out from under every rock from coast to coast.
