By: Doug Lesmerises (Cleveland.com) —
First question, before last weekend’s game escapes us, is what did you like better, the Pryor Shoulder (top clip) or the Wells Hurdle (bottom clip)?

When Terrelle Pryor lowered his shoulder on the sideline last Saturday and dropped Minnesota linebacker Rex Sharpe, he earned himself a nomination for Ohio State’s Jack Tatum Hit of the Week.

“That’s good,” OSU coach Jim Tressel said Tuesday. “I’d rather have him be there than on their Tatum list. He likes to play football.”

But could a move like that help put a target on Pryor’s back?

“I’m sure they’re going to be looking for him reprisal or not, but he likes to play the game,” Tressel said.

So the coach didn’t sound like he was discouraging that kind of physical play from his freshman quarterback, though the previous week he acknowledged that keeping Pryor from taking too many hits was an issue, saying a good way to do that was to hand off to the tailbacck.

The stat of this week may be that at 6-foot-6 and 235 pounds, Pryor is bigger than eight of Wisconsin’s starting defensive players.

Consider these measurements:
6-6, 235 and 6-4, 244
and
6-3, 232 and 6-6, 253

The first two are Ohio State’s top two quarterbacks, the next two Wisconsin’s starting defensive ends.

While Pryor can handle himself, I do believe that with his hype, ability and willing to express his confidence, Pryor could become a target for opposing defenses. Everyone wants to hit the quarterback and he he’s not going to stop running, but there are some guys defenses REALLY want to hit.

Pryor told two different versions of the story about delivering the hit to two different questions, saying once he was encouraged by Beanie Wells to deliver a blow, saying the other time that he’d been told by someone on the Minnesota sideline to hit someone and stop running out of bounds.

That’s the point - some Buckeyes might like to see Pryor do that, but some of the other guys might like it, too, for different reasons.

The next time Pryor gets to the sideline, do you want him to take on a defender, or do you want him to get out of bounds more quietly?

No related posts.