O-S-Who? Redux

by Rich

Ed. Note: Rich started this post at 3:55 AM the night of the National Championship game in January. Needless to say, this never got finished. However, I thought it would be fun to re-live the beating Ohio State took just as, you know, a warm up for tonight. Enjoy.



The BCS National Championship Game started out something like this.


...Aaaaand ended a little more like that. For the second year in a row, The Overrated State University put up a valiant fight was gutted like a fish by an SEC team that many said shouldn't even have been in the game. In the last two national title games, The Fighting Sweater Vests have been outscored 79-41 (And that should be 79-34, because I defy anyone to argue that LSU's defense was concerned with anything other than getting to the sidelines to hug departing coordinator Bo Pelini during OSU's last touchdown drive).

During last year's First Annual BCS Egg-Laying, Florida scored 21 straight points on the Bucks after they ran the opening kickoff back for a touchdown. This year, the LSU Tigers dropped 31 unanswered points on the boys from Columbus after they jumped out to a 10-0 lead. Nice work guys, this year you scored twice before folding like a red-and-gray card table. Really, you should be proud of yourselves.

The fact that I've spent the entirety of this post so far ripping on OSU certainly does not mean that I plan on overlooking how good this LSU team is. They were banged up all year (although the fact remains that both of their losses came in triple overtime), but got healthy enough to put on one hell of a show tonight. Their defense upstaged a statistically superior Ohio State unit, and to be honest I'm a little worried on behalf of Trent and Money about the idea of Glenn Dorsey possibly suiting up for the Dolphins next season. (Note: crisis averted) He commanded a double-team on every snap, got better as the game went on, and I haven't seen an interior lineman show the kind of closing speed he flashed on a sack of Todd Boeckman since...I dunno, since before Warren Sapp got old?

Senior QB Matt Flynn also came to play tonight, throwing a career-high 4 touchdowns and consistently handling OSU's much-hyped defense by finding the holes in their zone blitz schemes and hitting the hot receiver. Ohio State would bring pressure from the linebackers, and Flynn would simply take his three or five-step drop and sling it in to a tight end or wideout in exactly the spot where the blitzers came from. Props are also in order for LSU's pass protection, which gave Flynn the time he needed to make those reads.

And of course, I need to mention Les Miles. This guy is quickly becoming one of my favorite coaches at any level in any sport. He...

Isn't very important right now. Who is important is Beanie Wells, who won't be playing tonight. This should be fun...