Ohio State must be less conservative in play-calling, no matter if Joe Bauserman or Braxton Miller is at quarterback, to beat Miami, Bill Livingston writes.
Miami -- During his 13 unloved, but successful seasons at Ohio State, John Cooper had one saying he repeated so often, you knew what he would probably do when the chips were down.
"You want to gamble, but you want to gamble with my chips," he would say to the media. Then he would tighten up like like a screw under a power tool in the big games.
There have been rare exceptions, such as Bobby Hoying to Biletnikoff Award winner Terry Glenn in 1995 and Joe Germaine to David Boston in 1998, both under Cooper; as well as Troy Smith to a stable of spread formation receivers in his Heisman Trophy year in 2006, under Jim Tressel. But Ohio State's game plans have often been as close to the vest as Tressel's sideline attire.
Tressel had a holy trinity of guiding principles for quarterback play: Avoid turnovers, make big plays and make good decisions. In Tressel's book of football virtues, the greatest of these was avoiding turnovers. Tressel is gone now, a victim of the memorabilia sale cover-up. The player who took the snaps and basically called the signals for the scandal, quarterback Terrelle Pryor, is in the NFL.
In Pryor's place is his understudy for the past three years, 25-year-old fifth-year senior and former minor-league pitcher Joe Bauserman, No. 14 in your program, somewhat lower than that in Buckeye fans' hearts.
There was always an inherent tension between avoiding turnovers and making big plays. Tressel was a former Baldwin-Wallace quarterback who tutored quarterbacks and receivers as an Ohio State assistant coach under Earle Bruce three decades ago, then helped groom Buckeye quarterbacks again as the head coach. He knew he had to take calculated risks. "A quarterback is a play-maker. You have to take some risks," he would say.
Bauserman has obviously gotten the first and third parts of the Tressel mantra down. The big play part, not so much.
He has thrown for four touchdowns and no interceptions and no sacks, which is impressive with a group of receivers that is young and mostly untested. If no one is clearly open, he has thrown the ball away like a spendthrift does cash.
Said new coach Luke Fickell, after a frantic victory over MAC contender Toledo: "He [Bauserman] didn't take some chances in some situations where . . . as you look back and think, oh, he really could have taken a chance and try to snake it in there. . . . Sometimes we think throwing the ball up there in the sixth row [of the] stands is not always a bad decision."
It is caretaker football, game manager stuff.
It worked when Tressel had power runners such as Maurice Clarett, Antonio Pittman and Beanie Wells operating behind strong lines. The Buckeyes, in the throes of the Season of Suspensions, don't have that now. It worked when Tressel had Mike Nugent, Josh Huston or Devin Barclay to trot in and salvage points with field goals. Drew Basil has missed four straight field goals, dating to last season. The Buckeyes don't have that now.
There are two options out of this quagmire Saturday night against the Miami Hurricanes.
The less likely one is to remember not only to use heralded true freshman Braxton Miller, but also to summon more risk tolerance with him from the defense-oriented Fickell and his safety-first offensive coordinator Jim Bollman.
Maybe Miller will repeat the threadneedle 15-yard touchdown pass he completed to Devin Smith in the back of the end zone against Akron. Maybe he will pose a dual threat with his legs, like Pryor. Or maybe he will throw a couple of zeppelins, which, even if he gets away with them (like Pryor at the start of the second half in the Sugar Bowl), will have coaches rushing Bauserman back into the lineup. No one knows until Miller gets a real chance.
As for Bauserman, living to play another down is not the most inspirational of slogans. It only works against a team like Miami if some of the other downs turn into big plays. Only seven of Ohio State's 27 first-down plays against Toledo were passes, as Bollman seldom tried to keep Toledo off balance. It was as narrow and predictable as Woody Hayes' 3 yards and a cloud of dust.
You cannot ask a caretaker quarterback to make big plays with his arm when down-and-distance signal his intentions. It is a bad gamble with the Buckeyes' chips.