Football Blame Game

No, this is not another post about the NFL and Rush Limbaugh. Instead this is about The Ohio State University losing a football game they should have won easily today. It is said that a quarterback receives too much credit for wins and takes too much blame for losses. However, in this case OSU QB Terrelle Pryor actually deserves the lion's share of the blame for the loss. Football is a team game, but of the teams five turnovers four were committed by Pryor (two fumbles and two interceptions). Inexcusable - nothing is more important than protecting the ball. Pryor was the hottest recruit coming out of high school and is a phenomenal athlete. However, he is not developing as a passing quarterback. He does not look comfortable taking a 5 step drop and finding an open receiver. His fumbles and interceptions lost this game.

I don't want to leave the impression that Pryor deserves all the blame. The offensive line did little or nothing to keep Purdue away from Pryor.

Also, Coach Tressel should have stuck with the running game. Early in the game Brandon Saine was running very well and then they seemed to abandon the running game. Bad call.

Conversely, credit the win to the entire Purdue team. They showed up ready to play and were fired up from the first snap to the last one. Bottom line: The Boilermakers clearly wanted to win this game more than the Buckeyes.