Football
Buckeye Air Attack Scalding Defenses Again
By John PorentasSometimes in the heat of the season, particularly when your team is 10-0, it's hard to remember just what it was that had you wringing your hands before the first kickoff. Just in case you forgot, here's a reminder. Everybody thought the Buckeye passing game was in trouble. Troy Smith, Ted Ginn and Anthony Gonzalez were all gone. Oh, woe is we Buckeyes.
Ten games into 2007, there is talk that first-year starter Todd Boeckman is a legitimate Heisman candidate. The quarterback issue is settled, the Buckeyes have a serviceable quarterback, but what about the receivers?
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The loss of Ted Ginn and Anthony Gonzalez to the NFL left many (including us) wondering if the OSU receiving corps, in specific the wide receivers, would measure up in 2007. Obviously, we were very stupid.
This year's set of receivers has more-than impressed and more-than silenced the nay-sayers. They've done it not by trying to be like the stars that have moved on, but by exploiting their own unique talents.
Brian Robiskie Brian Robiskie showed flashes as OSU's third receiver last season while Ginn and Gonzalez were still around, but the question this year was whether Robo could get it done once Ginn and Gonzalez were gone. Robiskie is fast, but not like Ted Ginn is fast. People wondered if he would be able to get open without Ginn and Gonzalez on the field.
Robiskie is fast enough to be a deep threat, but probably isn't going to run past a defense on a regular basis as Ginn did. What he does, however, is own the football once it's in the air, particularly on deep balls.
"He probably has the best hand-eye coordination for the long ball that I've seen. It is phenomenal how he tracks the ball on the long ball and contorts his body in crazy ways and still focuses on the stripes of the ball," said OSU wide receiver coach Darrell Hazell.
The good luck for Robiskie and the Buckeyes and the bad luck for the competition is that the Buckeyes have a quarterback this season whose skill strength perfectly matches Robiskie's. The OSU coaching staff told us all spring and fall that Boeckman could throw the long ball and he has lived up to that billing.
"He's the mad bomber," chuckled Hazell.
What they didn't tell us is that Boeckman had the perfect fit at receiver in Robiskie. The staff suspected it, but needed to see it in a game.
"The ball he threw against Washington is really the coming out for both of them," said Hazell.
"In the third quarter we hit a long one. It was a great ball and he ran a great route, and you thought, 'Man, there's something there,' and then he kept doing it over and over again," Hazell said.
Robiskie has a team-high 44 catches good for 833 yards and 10 touchdowns. He averages an impressive 18.9 yards per catch average. His 83.3 receiving yards per game also leads the team.
Brian Hartline Robiskie has gotten it done out wide. His counterpart and successor to Gonzalez, Brian Hartline, has also gotten it done as a slot receiver.
Hartline saw some action last season as a special teams player and as a receiver when Anthony Gonzalez had injury problems. He flashed glimpses of the type of player he is with his physical play on special teams. Though not the biggest player on the field, he made bone-jarring tackles on special teams and catches when called upon at wide receiver. Still, he was an unproven quantity coming into 2007
"I didn't honestly know what to expect in terms of actual play and being able to make plays," said Hazell of Hartline.
What Hazell did know is that he had a fighter in Hartline.
"I knew he is as competitive of a guy as I've ever coached in 22 years. He wants to win at everything, it doesn't matter what it is, so that part I knew we were going to have, and he's physical. He loves knocking guys out, but he's been great. He's been a playmaker for us and he's a good third-down guy," Hazell said.
Ironically Hartline's physical style was something that concerned Hazell heading into the season.
"I said to him that the challenge going into the season is 'Can you play 12 games?' He assured me that he could. If he had played like he did last year he would have never made 12 games because his body was on the ground all the time.
"We had a penalty for every time he went down on the ground at the beginning part of camp. If he wasn't forced to the ground there was a penalty he had to pay," said a smiling Hazell.
"We have something we call 'scalded dogs' that he had to do. It's a three-legged kind of thing on two hands and one leg up in the air. Every time he hit the ground he had to do that if it was unforced," said Hazell.
The scalded dog kept Hartline up (and in the lineup), and now his stock as a receiver is up as well. Like Robiskie, Hartline can run, but it is his attitude on the field and his physical style of play that have made him what he is.
"He's fearless and he has no regard for his body, which is a good thing. He throws his body around like nobody and keeps fighting," said Hazell.
Hartline's lack of fear, good hands and ability to run made him not only an excellent receiver, but an excellent punt returner as well. He currently leads the Big Ten with a 13.4 yard per return average as a returner and showed his speed with a 90 yard return for a touchdown to set an OSU record earlier this season. As a receiver this season, he has 41 catches, just three short of Robiskie, for 524 yards and five touchdowns.
2006 vs. 2007
As a pair, Robiskie and Hartline have surpassed even Hazell's expectations.
"They have tremendous range these two guys, where I thought that's where I thought we might have been a little bit lacking in terms of throwing the balls outside the bodies last year," said Hazell.
"These guys have tremendous range, they play well around guys, they're physical and they play hard every play. They have very good hands. I would rate Robiskie's as probably and A and Hartline an A-," Hazell said.
While Hartline and Robiskie probably don't quite measure up to Ginn and Gonzalez in raw speed, the important word there is "quite". Both can run. And while both Gonzalez and Ginn have good hands, Robiskie and Hartline may actually have an edge over that duo in terms of their ability to catch the football. Where Hartline and Robiskie have a definite edge is in their ability to play a physical brand of football, and that is crucial to the OSU offense this year in their ability to block for OSU's other big weapon in the offense, Beanie Wells.
Hazell actually paused about five seconds searching for words when asked about the blocking of Robiskie and Hartline.
"Their effort is off the chart, and that's where is starts," said Hazell, who is not a man given to making overstatements.
"They throw their bodies around, it's off the charts. I'm very pleased with how they block, very pleased," Hazell said repeating himself with emphasis on the "very pleased" part .
"We're blocking a lot better this year (than last year). We're blocking extremely well. They just play so hard.
"If you can block the safeties, if you can get a chance to block the safeties and put the running back one-on-one with the corners, especially that running back (Wells)," said Hazell.
For evidence of that statement just look back to the Wisconsin game. Hartline won the Jack Tatum hit of the week for a block he made to help spring Beanie Wells.
"That's as big a play as a touchdown catch," said Hazell. "When you make a block that gets your back into the endzone, it's a huge play for a wide receiver," Hazell said.
Another Small Factor
In 2006 Robiskie was in the role of OSU's third receiver and brought his hands and route-running ability to the field to compliment the speed and skill of Ginn and Gonzalez. This year he is on the field most the time, but when the Buckeyes do go to three wide outs, it is Ray Small who comes into the game. Small gives the Buckeyes the kind of threat that Ginn brought, blazing speed, and according to Hazell, has been more and more effective in that role as the season has progressed.
Ray Small "Ray is still coming on. I'm really starting to get excited about him," said Hazell.
"We had a long talk two weeks ago. I thought it was time for us to have that talk, that we needed him these last four games down the stretch to start making some plays and he's really starting to step up, and we'll do some things to help him keep coming," Hazell said.
"He takes the pressure off those other two. If we can get him matched up one on one, he's going to be on the outside all the time for us, he's not going to play in the slot for us right now, but if we can get him matched up he's got tremendous quickness and speed and he can stretch the defense," Hazell said.
Hazell says that Small's big catch and run in the Penn State game to set up OSU's second touchdown was an example of Small's improvement.
"That's going to happen more and more each week, where he understands where coverages are coming from and how coverages are rotating. We put him in the boundary that time. Generally we don't put him into the boundary in that trip set. We had a double-post called and the safety stayed high, and he ended up staying nice and wide off the safety and that was the difference in the play," said Hazell.
The Buckeyes are now in the position of being able to put three receivers on the field that are threats, and that has prevented opposing defenses from keying on any one of them. They also have some youth that has provided unexpected depth.
"Dane (Sanzenbacher) is very steady," said Hazell of OSU's current fourth receiver.
"As a true freshman he's very steady and I have a lot of confidence in him. Taurean Washington is the fifth guy that I think can help us if we ever need him to."
Hah! And you thought the Buckeyes were going to have to rely on the ground game this year.
So did we.
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