Ohio St. vs. LSU

Well, as promised, here is my preview of tonight's BCS Championship game between LSU and Ohio St. When this game was first announced, it was assumed by a lot of people that LSU would win this game, with the line being as high as LSU -6 at some places. Lately though, the line has been coming down, and now people are starting to believe that Ohio St. can pull this out. Currently the line sits at LSU-4.

I have been going back and forth on this for a couple of weeks now. LSU, when i have watched them this year, quite frankly have not been that impressive. That said, their only two losses have both been in triple overtime, which means to me that they are very hard to beat. They do play in a better conference (at least this year), and the rigors of that conference has to have toughened them up and made them battle ready. And lastly, with the last month off, LSU will actually be healthy going into this game, especially Glenn Dorsey, their stud D-lineman.

On the other hand you have Ohio St. Playing in the weaker Big Ten, the Buckeyes largely rolled through the conference schedule, with one notable exception: losing at home to Illinois. That loss wasn't a good one, but the officiating was questionable at best (see article here) and it was against a spread option offense, something the Big Ten teams traditionally struggle against when run well. LSU does not employ a spread offense, nor does it have particularly mobile quarterbacks like Illinois does with Juice Williams.

Most people point to just last year, when Ohio St. was in the same position, playing for the National Championship against a 'fast' SEC team, that time Florida. Big Ten - SEC matchups are always billed as speed (SEC) vs. strength (Big Ten). I myself am a proponent that strength will always beat speed, because if you hit someone hard in the mouth repeatedly, you wear them down, thus negating their speed aspect. Going into this bowl season, since 2000 the Big Ten was 11-11 against the SEC in bowl games. Pretty even if you ask me. But because of last year's Championship game, in which Ohio St. got destroyed by Florida, the perception is that the SEC is much better than the Big Ten.

It is last year's game precisely though that i think gives a little extra edge to the Buckeyes. They were embarrassed in that game, falling behind early (despite scoring first) and never being competitive in that game. There are many players from that squad still on the team this year, and i think they have something to prove.

Let's take a look at one more aspect, the coaching. Coach Les Miles has been a brash, risk-taking coach this year, and it has largely worked out for him. While his decisions can sometimes be questioned, his desire to win and competitiveness cannot. In the Florida game he went for it on 4th down four different times. In the Auburn game, which i still cannot believe and is one of the greatest endings to a game i have ever seen, Coach Miles had his team throw a 22-yard touchdown pass on 3rd down with 8 seconds remaining and down by 1, needing only a field goal. It was caught with 1 second on the clock left, but he risked running out of time if it was not caught. Coach Miles has huge juevos. Huge.

Coach Tressel, while not quite the risk-taker Miles is, is a fantastic in-game coach and is great at preparing his team. This team got beat-down last year, and Coach Tressel has been using that as motivation for a month. He has put together a 10-minute videotape of 'experts' spouting off about the Buckeyes not having a chance against LSU, and has been showing it to his team for the last week. And he had a month to prepare and gameplan for LSU, which is what he does best.

The game, as most bowl games do, will come down to turnovers and execution. For some reason, i think Ohio St. can pull this out. I think they will be fired up, from all of Tressel's motivational techniques and from last year's Championship game. I think they will be flying around the field on defense hitting people, and i think on offense they take Beanie Wells and pound him up the middle over and over. I also think Tressel will throw in a trick play or two to keep things off balance. And though Les Miles will certainly have some things in store for his team, i think Ohio St. gets it done.

Ohio St. +4 over LSU
Go Big Ten