A Brief Look at the USC Defense

As ugly as last year's date with USC was, the Ohio State offense still totaled 207 yards. Not "good" under any stretch of the imagination, but hey, it's better than, I dunno, 82 or something ridiculous like that. The low total masks some fairly effective early Ohio State drives in the first half. Taking USC's first punt at the twenty, Ohio State marched down the field against the stout Trojan defense before settling for a field goal, after a series of false starts and other miscues.  Ohio State had a second-quarter touchdown called back on a holding call , then missed the ensuing field goal. After that, the game turned into what most expected it to be from the moment Beanie Wells was writhing on the ground in agony against Youngstown State.

There aren't many positives offensively or defensively that you can take away from a 32-point rout, but Ohio State did have some things working against USC before the post-Havili touchdown meltdown. As maligned as it was, the two-QB system worked early on against USC. That won't be necessary this year. In the Coliseum, Terrelle Pryor never quite got loose, but toted the rock 11 times for 40 yards, to go with 7 completions out of 9 passing attempts for 52 yds. Yes, you read that right: in his 2nd game as a Buckeye, Pryor accounted for nearly half of the offense's total output. That bodes well for this weekend's game, in which Pryor will play a much larger part in the offensive scheme. In the second half, USC ran some fairly simple QB-contain and essentially bottled up the true freshman. That does not bode well for this weekend.

How they might beat us

It's fairly simple: Don't let Pryor get anywhere outside of the pocket, and hit him when he does. This can be done in a multitude of ways, and is only inadvisable if Pryor finds a way to make you consistently pay for it. Some popular ideas I've heard tossed around on USC forums and blogs humble enough to admit Ohio State has a chance to win:

- Use a LB as a spy in likely running situations

- Use Taylor Mays as a spy

- "Contain him with the ends", which sounds like it came from someone playing a bit too much NCAA 10 lately

Any of these might suffice. Each option also has an obvious drawback. Taylor Mays spying on Pryor would result in at least one receiver getting no deep help in man coverage.  Using a linebacker as a spy might, I repeat might work, and if any set of LBs can hope to keep up with Pryor in the open field, it'd probably be ones playing for USC. Nevertheless, the chance that one of these guys bites on read-option or play action is rather high, which would get him out of position and force him out of the play. The problem with many types of "QB-contain"-oriented defenses is that they remove a guy from coverage without bringing the pressure that a blitz would; while it will usually help make sure the QB can't squirt out of the pocket and go for big yards down the center of the field, it also means that he'll have just a little bit more time to make his reads. Pryor is leaps and abounds ahead of where he was as a passer last year, so hopefully he can make USC pay should they choose to use one of the schemes proffered by its fanbase.

How we might beat them

Alright, I'm going to be straight-up with you: Ohio State will not win if Terrelle Pryor passes for fewer than 150 yards. To help him do this, OSU needs to immediately exploit play-action when and if the running game hits it stride. Yes, Ohio State will need to exploit the same thing USC will be trying to on the other side of the ball, but it's going to have to do it in a variety of ways. I'm hoping we'll see a little bit of variation as far as the looks we give USC on the fake hand-off; motion a WR into the backfield, put a HB in the slot and do the same thing, or hell, even do the patented Tim Tebow QB-only play-action fake, in which Pryor basically does a headfake and prays a DB bites on it. I think we'll see the latter at least once in this game, I really do. Both teams are going to be respecting the running game of the other, and thus, both teams will be suspceptible to the play-fake. Ohio State, however, has a bit of an advantage here with Pryor. Pete Carroll will undoubtedly have his charges schooled better in defending a running quarterback than they were in 2005:

And I can't help but hope that perhaps so much emphasis will be placed on attacking the running QB in every way possible that the deep ball will actually become available when a DB bites on a fake or two. If so, you better hope Pryor can make that play. Most of what I saw from him Saturday tells me he can.