Even with spring ball beginning it’s a slow time of year. There isn’t much to write about right now, so I’ll share the notes and observations I’ve collected over the past few days while thumbing through all things OSU.
1. Michael Phillip will have his knee scoped. Rumor is he might need minor surgery. Clearly this is the most disconcerting news from the past few days. You hear one report from source x and another from source y, so who knows? The fact that most agree he won’t return until the fall is a bad sign. It means the injury, whatever it is, is worse than originally thought. The worst part about this is that it’s another position with no depth–Wilder McAndrews now steps in, and he is, simply put, not a good player. I once calculated how much money (in scholarships) OSU has paid McAndrews per down played, and it was close to 10k…that was last year. Probably close to 15k now. Scary-bad investment. I’m sure it will be a day or two before he breaks his arm, and then we’re on to another elite talent in Timi O.
2. The baseball team is treading water. Yes, they took 2 of 3 in the Pac-10 opening series, and it was on the road…bravo. But USC is one of the weaker teams in the conference. My observation early on that the pitching is just good, but not great, is holding true. Good pitching, average-to-good defense, and weak hitting–I’m not sure this is the recipe for success in this conference. I expect a frustrating string of series loses vs the upper echelon with said loses averaging out [with wins] against weaker foes.
3. We’re 3 days into camp, and I’m tired of reading about the “QB controversy”…we just finished going through this with the last batch. Can we please settle on a QB and go with him? Anyone else feel exhausted by the yin/yang of our QB situation the past 4 years?
4. We signed a guy named Ryan Handford. He’s another “under the radar” recruit who I’m told is a late bloomer. After watching his film, he does show some promise. When running he looks like ex-safety Bryan Payton, and when hitting he reminds me of Coy Francies. The curious thing is that the Beavers need help at other positions (i.e. DE, LB) much more than CB. Another funny note about this signing was reported by Cliff Kirkpatrick, who wrote that the Beavers offered Handford because they “liked his Youtube video.”
5. That’s about it, anything else you’d like to discuss go about it in the comments. This Angry Beaver is off to celebrate his birthday.
Happy Birthday!
The new signee looks interesting. I think he and Hardin could form a very physical pair of corners in 2011. Good weight and speed. Similar to another post on the other thread, I could see OSU secondary coaches dulling his ball instincts. It appears he does a fairly balanced job of playing the man and the ball (also supported by his run support tackles), but unfortunately OSU may not take advantage of this. Too bad, it’d be nice to see some CB’s getting INT’s again.
I think Riley’s statements in the press about the QB’s is intended to facilitate competition, and not have players feeling like there’s no sense in competing. BUT, I agree with you. Katz has been here three years, should know the system, has game time, experience with his teammates. Anoint him the damn starter and tell the others if they want his job, they have to take it. Anybody young player who doesn’t want that challenge probably isn’t competitive enough anyway.
Regarding the O-line, I feel a little like either Cav or the recruits have been overrated. In Scheuning’s last year (and Bernard’s), they were ranked as one of the top 5 o-lines in the country by one preseaosn mag (Sporting news?). But, they didn’t perform well until mid-season. Cav tinkers with the line a bit too much I think, shifting players around. And its not like he develops road graders. I realize part of that may be the zone blocking scheme. OSU puts up good rushing yards, but if Quizz weren’t so shifty, the numbers would be down I think. I wish Cav could instill some meaness in the players, which he reportedly is trying to do. McAdrews and Oshinowo have done nothing, and Cav always seem to have a pretty shallow rotation. I dunno, maybe I’m nitpicking. Cav is highly regarded, I just feel like its time for more empirical justifications for the accolades.
Thanks for the birthday wishes.
Cav works miracles with what he has. I don’t think he’s the problem at all. He’s also one of the better recruiters on the staff. As always, the problem is with talent. The C and LT (Phillip) are the only real players on the line, so his job is to turn the remaining 1 star/walk-ons into serviceable players. This situation is due to a breakdown in the recruiting process, not Cav. The guy is a loud-mouth and his personality seems grating, but he’s a great (technique) coach and gets a lot out of questionable talent.
As far as the sporting news predicting anything correctly, just click this and have a gander:
http://www.sportingnews.com/college-basketball/article/2010-03-16/flawed-four-purdue-butler-michigan-state-new-mexico-may-fall-e
Remmers is starting to look legit and he has really bulked up.
He looks more the part this year, but to me he is average until he proves otherwise, and it took 3 years for him to get to this serviceable/pedestrian level. Seems like the coaches could cut a year off that process by simply recruiting a more (physically) ready HS player. If we had done that, we’d have a dominant tackle instead of a serviceable question mark. Our guys don’t seem ready to contribute, physically, until junior/senior year, where as elite programs it’s freshman/sophomore. That’s the problem with recruiting projects, walk-ons, good stories, and 1 star athletes.
I do feel any coaching staff could develop these same players, they just choose to go after better talent and cut the years of development down while maximizing the years the recruit can produce.
fair enough. Although another solution is to not have breaks in recruiting so there is always a guy ready to step up.
Happy birthday, Angry! Make it a good one
I gotta say I like his youtube video as well. I think we’re the victim of strange, maybe good, luck on this one.
And I’m not too worried about the O line. There are more than a few good young replacements for the vets.
Problem is the *good* depth is raw and green. So we’ll see these marginal players like Timi O and Wilder mentioned at tackle, and that worries me.
Timi and Wilder are only marginal due to their injury bugs. If they continue that path, we’ll be hearing about Enger, Andrews and Thomas getting some time. Pohl, Garner and Kelly (and maybe Lyons) should provide good depth on the inside… with the three youngsters moving up and down the line to see where they fit in. I’m not really sold on Ellis yet.
We need another class of big hosses next year.
Enger and Andrews will be great, but the fact we aren’t hearing them mentioned means the marginal talent (Timi O and McAndrews) is ahead of them. The greenhorns probably aren’t ready, physically, only a few years in. I disagree with you that Timi O/McAndrews are only marginal due to injury. I’ve never seen a less agile/more upright tackle than Timi O. Some people were (and still are) really high on that guy, but I never understood it. The few times he played he got smoked.
Happy Birthday Angry, as the lame 08 OSU Football slogan said.., “Let it rage” another year.
This injury to Phillipp, assuming he can recover in time to get some good practice in during the fall, could be a blessing in disguise. Before the injury happened I was worried what might happen if Phillipp went down in the middle of the season. Now, as Spring practices and Summer drills occur, we’ll know exactly what to expect because I imagine Cav is going to open things up to competition, and so far, Cav’s been the only one that gets the idea of competition down right, I’ve never really questioned his starters- unlike this nonsense that Baker puts us through with the defense (Tuimanei and Frahm last year, any one?)
So yeah, this is a bummer, but Phillipp has the best raw talent, and maybe a few of these guys they switched over to D-Line could jump back and forth to add some competition.
Who knows? this team gets more and more interesting to hear about by the minute.
“this team gets more and more interesting to hear about by the minute.”
It’s getting more interesting in the fact that we’ll be seeing more of these better/younger players in the mix, but they’re still green and thus prone to errors, so overall the team is getting weaker with each passing injury. It’s still a long way to kickoff, but today I am not feeling very optimistic about the upcoming season.
I don’t think we need to feel too much dread until after the TCU game, it is then we’ll have a clear picture of what the younger guys bring to the table.
I’ll use Phillipp himself as an example for this argument in that last year, I’m pretty sure that as a freshman offensive lineman, Phillipp had fewer penalties than Mike Remmers or Grant Johnson- guys that had been there for a while and I swear to God had penalty after penalty.
Frosh guys have made a big splash before at OSU. Quizz and James being two other good examples. However, if all these younger guys go 1-2 during the non-con, be very, very afraid.
Can you name any other frosh who have made a splash other than Phillip and Quiz? And those were probably our two most highly regarded recruits in the past five years.
As far as penalties, Grant Johnson and Remmers DEFINITELY made more than Phillip. Early on I was keeping stats of those things during the game, but then by halftime I became frustrated and drunk and that ended. But I’d bet my house on both those guys making significantly more penalties, and at worse/crucial times, too. Remember the Remmers penalty when Canfield had the Beavs driving vs Arizona? Few plays later, interception.
My understanding is they are just going in to clean up some cartilage in Phillips knee. This is typically a short recovery and will not adversely effect the guy until later in life when he starts to develop arthritis. Removing cartilage weakens the knee by a negligible amount.
USC is in for a long season.
Lane Kiffen cannot lead men. The dude is just acting a part and it’s so transparent. Every day I read a new article about that clown and wonder how he ever got A job, never mind the USC job. Incredible.
One word… Monte
Has there been any news of the NCAA investigation yet? Everything has pretty much gone into silent mode with only a couple USC apologists extolling their school’s virtues.
“One word… Monte”
I mean, I know that’s why he got his first job, but I can’t believe it’s why he keeps getting second, third, and fourth chances. The guy is an absolute joke. Is anyone else psyched beyond belief that Pete is in Seattle and this clown is running the show? I’d be surprised if USC finishes above 4th this coming season. As a player, how to you get stoked to play for Lane Kiffin and give him all you got? A coach who doesn’t have control and will back out of any job should a better one come along…should be interesting in LA.
I heard it’s going to be a few months before the investigation settles.
Is the Reggie Bush stuff over or is that part of the investigation? The LA media loved Carroll, they are looking for any chance to blast Kiffin. I think he will oblige in full.
The Reggie Bush issue is the main part of the football side of the investigation, but other players had issues as well. I think USC went into the hearings with a defense which consisted of plausible deniability. So they won’t be hit with ‘institutional control’ penalties. But ‘failure to monitor’ penalties can add up also. Remember that when USC gave themselves a light slap on the wrist for the OJ Mayp situation they also tried to lash themselves with a wet noodle for the football side. But the NCAA disallowed any self-imposed penalties at that time. They must have a lot of something that USC just doesn’t know about. They better. They’ve been at it for four years now.
And if you want to find something on Kiffin look up ‘Kiffin car wreck’. Knoxville just can’t get over losing Fink. I have no idea what they thought they had in him other than a father with a brilliant defensive mind. He can recruit, but how long will it be before kids are told to run when he pulls up and offers his candy?