(Bumped to the Main Page section: an interesting first look at this game from Laughing Stock - DC Trojan)

Football season is just around the corner, so I thought it might be fun to look at some of the tendencies and trends surrounding what is arguably the game of the year; Ohio State at USC. Originally I intended for perhaps one or two posts, but after looking at some statistics I decided to split it up into a few different categories. I'll be looking at general offense vs. defense for both teams, and then I'll examine Chris Wells and Todd Boeckman* in their own posts, then we'll look at USC's performance against ranked teams, and finally I'll wrap up with some closing thoughts. For the first post we're going to look at USC's defense and tOSU's offense:

There are two definite tendencies that can be drawn from USC's defense in recent history. The first is obvious, the rush defense tends to be excellent. 2005 is the exception, and after all USC lost Shaun Cody (5th pick, 2nd round) and Mike Patterson (31st overall) after 2004. Some might take this as a bad sign as both Big Sed and LoJack were taken in the first round, but I would have to disagree. Looking back at the ZOMG BEST EVAR 2005 USC Trojans, its clear that there was a lot of youth on defense. In addition to losing Cody and Patterson, the defense (see above: ranked 3rd in the country) lost MLB extroardinaire Lofa Tatupu to the NFL and senior linebacker Matt Grootegoed to graduation. This left USC with a young defensive front (including then sophomores Sedrick Ellis and Lawrence Jackson) and a very young Linebacking corp which featured (then) sophomore Keith rivers and freshman Brian Cushing (with Rey seeing significant playing time as well). Knowing that we return a talented group of linebackers along with experienced talent (Everson Griffin and Fili Moala anyone?) on the D line makes me confident that USC's run defense should be excellent (that is only marginally worse) again this year.

The second is pretty clear two, USC  has simply not been as effective against the pass as the run. You may want to argue that passing yards are generally greater than running yards, and I would agree with you, but I included national rank in the tables for a reason. Over the last four years USC's passing defense has not outranked the rush defense, but that might actually change this year. Don't get me wrong, I'm still optimistic about our run D, but there are a number of reasons to be even more excited about our passing defense.  The three players that have anchored the SC secondary over the last 2 seasons have been Taylor Mays, Kevin  Ellison, and Carey Harris. As starters in 2006 they replaced an experienced secondary comprised of safeties Darnell Bing, Scott Ware, and corner back Justin Wyatt and improved the overall defense. The pass defense again improved significantly from 2006 to last season, and with that same trio anchoring this season's secondary expectations should be high. While pass defense has always been greatly dependent on the pass rush, I am confident that Griffin (5.5 sacks last year), along with Moala and Mauluga, will provide more than adequate pressure on opposing QBs.

Now let's take a look at Ohio State's offense. If any conclusion sticks right out from the table it has to be the relative balance between rushing and passing yards. This goes completely against the general perception that OSU is a power run first team. Despite the numbers, this is still true as we would have to examine passing attempts against rushing attempts to know the real balance between passing and rushing. Last year Ohio State ran the ball 554 times** for a total of 2560 yards (4.62 YPA). In contrast they attempted 329 passes completing 210 receptions for 2558 yards (7.78 YPA). Based off of those numbers, out of a total of 883 attempts Ohio State ran the ball 63% of the time and passed the other 37% of the time. There is reason to believe that they may actually run the ball more as Chris Wells is already considered one of the top contenders for the Heisman and Tressel has made comments suggesting that Terelle Pryor will see a decent amount of playing time this year.

I think its reasonable from the above to say that Ohio State has fielded a fairly steady and effective rushing unit year in and year out, and this year should be no different and may even be (and likely will be) better than it has been over the past few seasons. However, what can be said about this years passing offense? The high point came in 2005, with a passing offense that featured future Heisman winner and dual threat Troy Smith along with Santonio Holmes and Tedd Ginn Jr. (the WR's were both eventually drafted in the first round, while Smith went in the 5th round). There was some dropoff from 2005 to 2006, but Troy Smith still had a QB rating around 160 and very balanced passing between Ginn and Gonzalez (781 and 734 yards respectively). In 2007 receiver Brian Robiskie came very close to reaching 1,000 yards in receptions last year and Boeckman was nothing if not efficient, there are some definite question marks about their passing offense. Robiskie's biggest games came against Youngstown State (I-AA), Washington (104th in pass defense), Michigan State (44th), and Minnesota (115th). His stats also seemed to worsen as the season went on, but on the bright side (at least for OSU fans) receiver Brian Hartline seemed to get better.  The group will likely be better than last years, but its questionable how much higher the ceiling is for this aerial attack. With that said, I'd be surprised if they reached the relatively pedestrian heights of their 2005 offense.

So what conclusions can be drawn from the above? I think USC has the definite edge in this battle. In all likelihood USC and OSU will meet somewhere in the middle of their averages thanks to USC's bend but not break defense. However, OSU may really struggle in the passing department against USC's experienced and talented secondary. Easy call in this case, USC's defense has a clear advantage over OSU's offense***.

note*: I thought about writing about their other star, LB James Laurinaitis as well, but defensive stats are not quite as all encompassing or easy to interpret as offensive stats. Don't worry though, he will be discussed extensively in the next installment

note**: I wanted to eliminate the number of times Boeckman was sacked and adjust for yards lost, but then I discovered that Boeckman actually rushed for about 50 yds last season which meant I would have to pour over game logs, which I did not want to do.

note***: I would sincerely appreciate any feedback or comments on this piece in general. Thanks in advance.