OSU football: Ohio State passed the torch, but not the ball

By: JON SPENCER (NewarkAdvocate.com) —
COLUMBUS — “What About Brian?” is more than the name of a forgettable and short-lived ABC drama. It sums up the struggles of Ohio State’s passing attack this season after incumbent quarterback Todd Boeckman was benched in favor of freshman Terrelle Pryor.
With Pryor more of a running threat at this stage of his career, receivers Brian Robiskie and Brian Hartline played a reduced role in an offense that failed to score a touchdown in three games.

After combining for 107 catches, good for 1,629 yards and 17 touchdowns in 2007, their collective numbers have fallen off to 58, 896 and 12, respectively, heading into the Jan. 5 Fiesta Bowl against Texas.

Complaining about his plight isn’t Robiskie’s nature. Doing so would mean answering to his father, Terry, receivers coach of the Atlanta Falcons.

“Obviously, I’m a receiver and I’m going to want to catch 150 balls if I could,” Robiskie said. “But the coaches know what’s best for us and you have to listen. My dad being a coach, he always told me they’re the ones that come up with the game plan and the players are the ones doing it. They know what’s best.

“Obviously, it’s frustrating because you don’t feel like you’re doing what you should be doing. But at the same time, blocking and getting open for other guys is important.”

That’s what coach Jim Tressel expected to hear from his senior co-captain.

“Fortunately, (Robiskie and Hartline) understand the times they’re out there blocking is not a reduced role and if they do a good job of downfield blocking, we’re going to move the football,” Tressel said. “Have they had as many catches? No. How have they handled that? From where I (sit), it hasn’t changed the way they prepare, the way they compete.

“Do they wish they had more catches? I bet if you gave them a lie detector (test), the answer’s yes. Do they wish that the team will succeed even more than that? Yes. They’re veterans and they’re quality guys.”

Hartline and Pryor clicked immediately, connecting on two touchdown passes in Pryor’s first start, a 28-10 victory against Troy. Hartline never found the end zone again until the 42-7 win against Michigan in the regular-season finale.

His second touchdown against the Wolverines, an 18-yarder thrown by Boeckman in mop-up duty, might have been Hartline’s final chance to hook up with one of his best friends on the team. Boeckman, a fifth-year senior, will serve as a groomsman at Hartline’s wedding in May.

“It’s definitely a tough transition, and it’s no knock on Terrelle,” Hartline said about the quarterback shuffle. “We all knew he was going to be a great player; there’s no doubt about it.

“You get to the point where you’ve got to trust the coaches. You might feel different then they feel, but overall, everyone can see, myself included, why he’s playing. He’s so good.

In 2007, his first as a starter, Boeckman helped the Buckeyes to the national championship game by throwing for 2,379 yards and 25 scores.

This season, Boeckman was benched after a 35-3 loss at USC, and the Buckeyes’ passing attack took a hit as a result. Hartline is averaging 22.8 yards per catch, but the rest of his numbers have dramatically declined.

Hartline is one of six juniors who filled out evaluation forms with the NFL. If he leaves early, can you blame him?

“I’m not big on complaining to the coaches,” he said. “It’s tough. If you’re winning football games, you don’t need to say anything to anybody because they’re doing a good job.

“It’s tough, more because Todd’s a great friend (outside) football and you really want to see the best for him. It’s not that my stats or Robo’s stats are going to suffer. Through the transition, it was a friendship thing, a camaraderie thing.”

Pryor has shown glimpses of his potential this season, enough to convince Texas coach Mack Brown that Tressel and Pryor will win a national championship together.

Lot of good it does Robiskie this season.

He led the Big Ten with eight touchdowns, but wasn’t ranked among the league’s top 10 receivers and didn’t make first- or second-team All-Big Ten. He simply made the most of his 37 catches.

“I wanted to come back and have a better year because that would be natural with anybody,” Robiskie said, admitting his NFL draft status as a junior wasn’t high. “I didn’t really let the amount of balls I caught stop me. I felt like this year was really important for me to improve a lot of things — running routes, blocking and getting open and doing a lot of different things. The amount of balls you catch really might not signify how much better you’re getting. If we had started losing, I would have said something. As long as we’re winning, that’s all that matters.”

After failing to score an offensive touchdown in a 13-6 loss at home to Penn State, the Buckeyes had a week off for reflection and re-evaluation. In their past three games — against Illinois, Northwestern and Michigan — they scored 117 points. Robiskie caught three touchdowns from Pryor.

“The chemistry with him is something that has been developing through the season,” Robiskie said. “I don’t think there was realy any point where things snapped and all of a sudden we were in sync with each other. It was just something that continued to develop and get better.

“I think when you have a young quarterback you haven’t played with, obviously timing is going to be off and things are going to be different. But as the season progressed, he understood where we were going to be as receivers and we understood how he was going through his reads and it got easier.”

Texas offers a good blueprint for Ohio State to follow. Quarterback Colt McCoy started as a freshman and took his lumps, including a 24-7 loss from the Buckeyes in Austin. Two years later he’s putting up video game numbers, completing a surreal 77.6 percent of his passes for 3,445 yards and 32 touchdowns, with only seven interceptions. Nine Longhorns have caught touchdowns and eight have double-figure receptions. By comparison, only five Buckeyes have scoring grabs and only four have caught as many as 10 passes.

After making 29 catches the past two years, senior tight end Rory Nicol only has six grabs this season, two for scores.

“(Offensive coordinator Jim) Bollman has this quote where he talks to us about forgetting yourself in the service of others,” Nicol said. “He basically is saying, ‘Forget about yourself and do what is best for the team.’ He’s been showing us that quote for two years. It’s probably taken me that long to understand that’s all you can do. You can be miserable if it’s all about me and ‘Why aren’t I catching the ball?’ Then you don’t buy fertility drugs without a prescription even care if you win. You don’t care how you graded out as a blocker or that you sprang Beanie (Wells) on a long run. You don’t care about those things because all you wanted to do was catch the ball.

“The advice I would have for anybody is to buy into the team concept. When I really bought into the fact that it wasn’t about me, Ohio State football became important and fun.”