OSU will put up way more than 35 points. They'll throw a bunch of receivers out there and spread the field. Cosh will have our outside linebackers lined up on those slot receivers like we did against baylor. That leaves Hrebek (the slowest linebacker in the Big XII nation to try to plug whatever gap the runningback is running through. He couldn't do it against baylor and Finley. What makes you think he can do it against OSU and Hunter? OSU will be able to name their score. I hope we can put up 28 points or so and make it respectable.
OSU might score 35, but I'm guessing we'll see a lot more zone coverage this week and we'll try to keep our ILB in the box.
Blackmon is really a big loss for them. Yes, they have other talented recievers, but in man coverage Weeden often will throw the ball up to Blackmon and he'll just make a play. You take that away, and it changes what OSU can do. The biggest thing to slow down is OSU's zone/lead from the pistol though. Hunter is a very good zone back with great burst and we really need to limit his big plays. Then they run a ton of play action off this look, and this is where they get Blackmon one on one and he makes plays. The remainder of their offense will be 3-step and 5-step drop, especially against our zone coverages, which OSU will flood and Weeden does a very good job checking down to underneath WRs. It is a bit hard to judge based on the NU game b/c NU ran man coverage most of the time, which OSU beat thoroughly. It looked like NU played more zone in the 2nd half and they slowed OSU's offense quite a bit. If we can limit the big plays (4 or less 30+ yards), force a couple TOs, and force OSU to kick FGs when they do get into the redzone, we can keep them under 30. It will take a much better effort than the Baylor and Nebraska games though; even without Blackmon OSU still has plenty of athletes.
Defensively OSU runs a 4-2-5, and like us they are weak on the defensive line and at LB. They will play much more agressive than us and bring more blitzes, which is probably the key for us offensively. NU had a ton of big plays, but many were created b/c Martinez escaped pressure and got the ball downfield or made a play with is legs. However, OSU was also got beat often by NU's play action leading to wide open WRs for Martinez. We need Thomas to have probably his biggest conference game so far this year; 150 yards plus and 5+ YPC, but Coffman and our WRs will also have to have big games. And we cannot fail to take advantage of opportunities like we did in Waco; when our defense does actually step up and make a play the offense has to move the ball and get points.
Finally, as others have said, OSU's special teams are not very good and this is another opportunity for us to get points or set up points.
