For the second year the Buckeyes will take on Jim Tressel’s former team the Penguins of Youngstown State. Last year the Bucks started out slow and then came on strong to earn a 38-7 victory. Even though Ohio State has some respect for the Penguins, the truth is that this is little more than a warm up for USC. I wonder how much of a warm up it will really be. I expect to see a lot of players get some playing time, especially some of the highly touted freshman, but I still have trouble with the scheduling of a Division 1-AA team. No disrespect to the YSU Alumni, but since this game doesn’t count for any Bowl consideration; the Bucks need to lay the wood to the Penguins from start to finish.

The Penguins come into this game with only one appearance in the playoffs since Tress left and are picked 3rd in their league. I’ve heard comparisons to Appalachian St. v UM, but App St. won their Nat’l Championship a few years in a row. YSU comes into the game with some good Ohio “football players” but they have big holes at QB and running back and really only have four experienced players on the defensive side of the ball. Expect them to throw some wrinkles into the game early with Ferlando Williams taking direct snaps and running behind the experienced but undersized line. Don’t expect too much throwing from the first year QB but they will have to put the ball in the air or “the animal” and friends will stuff the line of scrimmage.

I expect to see a lot of running from the Bucks. They are going to establish the ground game with some controlled passing game with the hopes of rolling down the field and racking up some early points. Tress will rotate a lot of the ones and twos and once he gets the comfortable lead, he’ll take the foot off of the pedal and we will see some of the young blood. Look for Boeckman to be consistent with no mistakes and Joe Bauserman to be tested a little when he gets in there, with Pryor coming in to everyone’s anticipation.

Back in the old days, the Bucks would take a mid-level WAC team and run up 60 points on them, but I would expect to see the Bucks play a lot of people and maybe stay around 40 points with holding the Penguins to maybe a touch with a kick. The goals: ball control, solid running game, no sacks, no turnovers, third down conversions and scoring TD’s in the red zone.

GO BUCKS!

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