Toledo tonic: cures more than just what ails ye

I think it's safe to say that Ohio State needed to win the way it did on Saturday to provide some sort of spark for the rest of this season. It was very easy for many in the media and some in the fanbase to assume Ohio State was dead in the water after its loss to USC; it's just difficult to rebound from a game where mere minutes seemed to separate redemption from regression. Quoth the Dispatch:

Instead, after losing to Southern California last week, the Ohio State Buckeyes wallowed in their misery. They internalized it, got mad and got even.

Toledo was the unfortunate recipient of all this seething, absorbing a 38-0 beating in front of a heavily partisan OSU crowd of 71,727 in Cleveland Browns Stadium.

I guess we just have to hope they didn't spend all that excess aggression and rage against what, when you get down to it, was just another MACrifice that had chewed its way through nice and cushy lowest-tier BCS defenses. If you take the best players from Purdue and Colorado's defenses, you might be able to cobble together a defense three-quarters as athletic as Ohio State's. I don't say this to be cruel or arrogant, it's just fact. 

So Toledo ended up being an excellent showcase game, but it also ended up being good practice for Illinois, as the Rockettes run a very similar offense to the Illini's, albeit with a fraction of the talent. Toledo's offensive line, which had looked dominant against Colorado and merely very good against Purdue, never got a beat on the Ohio State pass rush. The numbers may not show it, but Cameron Heyward, Doug Worthington and Thaddeus Gibson each set up their own tent in the backfield. If Ohio State can provide similar amounts of pressure all season long, it won't lose another game. I'm not sure it faces a genuinely better offensive line until Wisconsin comes to town, so now is the time to hone their skills. Partial mea culpa: I was only partially wrong about Worthington as a DT. In short yardage, dude got put on roller skates by USC and Navy. But when the offense has any more than 2 yards to go for a first down, the guy's just a terror and will be a huge asset against every spread team Ohio State faces, which brings me back to Illinois.

It helps to have a dominant defensive line against any team, but spread teams like the Illini typically try to neutralize the pass rush with incredibly annoying bubble screens and QB draws. Illinois did this well against Ohio State two years ago in the 'Shoe, most noticeably on the agonizing final Illini possession that bled eight minutes (!) off the play clock. Todd Boeckman always got the blame for that loss, but the defense did him no favors. They just couldn't get the Illini off the field. Even Vernon Gholston struggled with the read-option, long after it became clear that Juice Williams was keeping the ball every time. This defensive line is far more disciplined than the '07 one, and stronger on the interior. The Illini have already given up five sacks on the year, and that's with multiple mobile quarterbacks to choose from. I think another big day is in store for Heyward and Co.

Alright, I'm done salivating over the D-line. Other units impressed against Toledo. The secondary in particular got a good bit of practice against Toledo's tall, fast wideouts, but they probably aren't going to face a receiving corps as talented as Illinois' again this year. You know who Arrelious Benn is and what he do, unsexy '09 stats (1 catch for 9 yards) notwithstanding. Benn is struggling with a high ankle sprain, but may be healthy for this weekend's game (about that article: can you believe Illinois has won 7 out of the last 10 games in Columbus?). As if Benn's potential presence wasn't enough to get you fretting, Jarred Fayson is actually the Illini's leading receiver, with.... 8 grabs for 89 yards. Um. As you can tell, the Illini passing attack isn't exactly clicking on all cylinders right now, and there really isn't much in the way of evidence that it's going to start any time soon. This week, Juice Williams is coming back from an injury, and he's doing it against what's shaping up to be one of the Big Ten's best secondaries.

However, it's Juice Williams, and it's Ohio State. The past two seasons, Juice Williams has thrown for 332 yards and 6 touchdowns (to just 1 interception) while toting the rock himself 25 times for 118 yards. Against everyone else, he has 30 touchdowns to go with 28 picks. It's accepted fact these days that there is a Dr. Isaiah and a Mr. Juice, a Jekyll/Hyde conundrum within Isaiah "Juice" Williams that causes him to alternate between bona fide all-Big Ten quarterback and just another noodle-armed scrambler. Ohio State has mostly seen Dr. Isaiah dicing them for two years running; In 2007, Ohio State's defense, which finished the season as statistically the best in the country, could not bottle up Dr. Isaiah for the life of them. In 2008, flashes of Mr. Juice ended up dooming an Illini upset bid in which Dr. Isaiah presided over most of the proceedings. What Juice Williams shows up will go along way in determining whether this game is competitive.

Offensively, there shouldn't be too much to worry about. Ohio State got a far different look from Toledo than it will against Illinois, so it's difficult to know what to expect. Toledo ran a 4-2-5, Navy ran a 3-4 (and looked pretty good doing it), while USC's 4-3 "under" scheme invalidated the Ohio State running game. While the Illini run a 4-3 much like USC's in terms of personnel, the talent level is, despite Zook's overzealous recruiting strategies, greatly reduced, and so are the results: the Illini have given up 840 yards and 54 points of offense through two games. They have little-to-no pass rush and the secondary is, *ahem*, questionable, giving up even more yards through the air to Illinois State than they did to rebuilding Missouri.

While I fully expected Ohio State to roll Toledo with a powerful rushing tandem of Herron and Saine, that never came to be. This is one of the few games Ohio State has remaining in which it should, on paper, pile up 200+ yards rushing in a relatively easy winning effort. However, If the Buckeye running game again fails to get untracked, another 250+ yard day through the air from Pryor doesn't look out of the question with Illinois' porous pass D. If the stars align and both dynamics of the offense are fully in sync and hitting on all cylinders, this could just be another quiet snoozer. Unless, of course Dr. Isaiah has something to say about it.