By: Tom Hammer (BleacherReport.com) -

As a football enthusiast and Ohio State Buckeye critic I believe it is my right and responsibility to call out what I see as “BAD” offensive football coaching without coming off as a spoiled fan with a bias towards exciting football.

And up front I want to say this isn’t about Jim Tressel and whether or not he is the right guy for this football program.

Jim Tressel is a hell of a football coach, end of story. And anybody calling for his head really needs to take a breath and gain some perspective.

However, I feel like I am 100% justified to say he has been a poor offensive coach this year.

“Tressel-ball” to many Ohio State fans means coaching in a conservative manner that relies on a stout defense and good special teams while minimizing offensive mistakes to win football games.

This formula has been extremely successful for coach Jim Tressel and nobody can argue the resume. Once again, the right HEAD coach is in place at THE Ohio State University.

But the offensive scheming, the play calling and general management of the offensive side of the ball has been head scratching on one end and infuriating on the other. And that goes beyond “Tressel-ball”.

This goes beyond “conservative” or “low risk” or “cautious” or even “defensive” play calling.

If avoiding turn overs and allowing your defense and special teams to win the game is your strategy (eg. Tresselball) that doesn’t mean that you have to forfeit your offensive possessions.

Doesn’t an offensive coordinator have the responsibility to at least attempt to maximize the possessions they get during the game in order to be called successful??

Isn’t getting first downs and controlling the ball a key piece to a conservative strategy?

There are ways to scheme and to execute offensively even within the constraints of a conservative game plan.

But week in and week out I watch this offense and I truly believe there is no scheming going on here it is just plain ol’ stubborn play calling where you line up in the same formation(s) and run the exact same play.

I’m not saying you have to be deceptive to run a good offense but when these division one defensive coordinators have all week to game plan against you and they see you run the same set of 3 or 4 plays over 85% of the time, believe me their guys will be in position to stop those same plays.

I have a friend in the coaching profession and he heard through the grapevine from a Big 10 coach that Ohio State is the easiest team to defensively scheme against in the conference and probably the nation.

I believe that 100%. I sit on my couch and broadcast the play as soon as I see the formation. It is that easy.

Let me use an example. When they line up in the shotgun formation and the running back is on the left or right side of TP, or even if there are two backs on both sides, they run the zone blocking off tackle run to the halfback every time.

Now, that in of itself, is not a bad play BUT the whole key to that play being successful is for the QB to play out the fake because the QB has a zone read on that play where he can read the end, pull the ball out and run the ball the opposite way. OSU never lets Pryor actually keep the zone read.

A guy with TP’s running ability should be keeping the ball on the zone read more the 70% of the time on that play. OSU does it 2%. I’ve seen him keep the zone read maybe 3 times the whole year. Half the time he doesn’t even carry out the fake.

TP’s technique in even carrying out the fake is really hard to watch. A guy with 4.3 speed, and the scheme doesn’t call for the defense to respect him in a shot-gun zone read play? That is poor coaching.

Further, there are ways to emphasize the run through aggressive and smart scheming. Tressel prefers to line up exactly how the other team expects and run the exact play that they run over 80% out of that formation….

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