Week Two: No. 1 Ohio State vs. Hawaii—Week One Quick Recap, History Lesson, Trends, and Prediction

By HD Handshoe — BlockONation.com Founder

The No. 1 Buckeyes look to improve to 2-0 on the young season against the Rainbow Warriors during this extremely short week after their 42-24 primetime "revenge" win on Monday night at Virginia Tech.

Late in the third quarter,the #Braxspin became a BIG thing, and the Buckeyes never looked back, enroute to their 18-point victory.

There are very few questions surrounding the Buckeyes outside of Cardale Jones and J.T. Barrett being listed as co-starters on this weeks depth chart. Also this week the depth chart gets deeper as Joey Bosa, Jalin Marshall, Dontre Wilson, and Corey Smith all return from their one game suspensions.

Both the offense and defense already looked solid and very capable in the tough Lane Stadium environment against assumingly a better opponent than Hawaii and the old adage says the biggest leap for a team is from game one to game two, That's a potentially horrible nightmare and lopsided blowout awaiting Hawaii.

The top three things I can say about the Rainbow Warriors are one, they have former USC QB Max Wittek as their starting quarterback (there are a few reasons why Wittek is a former USC QB, so don't be too overly concerned), two, they'll be sporting these sweet throwback jerseys (pictured below) in The Shoe, and three, their pregame ritual dance known as "The Hata" definitely gives "Quick Cals" a run for the money.


Here are this weeks historical-data-tidbits and a few recent and/or ongoing trends for your consideration that might be of interest.

Ohio State—Hawaii History Lesson And Recent Trends

• Urban Meyer coached teams are 100-17 when ranked in the Top 25.

• Ohio State is 81-8 at Ohio Stadium since the start of the 2002 season.

• Ohio State is an astounding 296-1-1 all-time when scoring 35+ points.

• Head coach Urban Meyer is 52-5 in his career in games played in August/September.

• Ohio State's defense has held opponents to 10 points or less 42 times since 2006.

• Ohio State looks to extend the nation's longest FBS winning streak, currently 14 games.

• Ohio State has held 85 opponents to 21 points or less since the start of the 2005 season.

• Ohio State is 67-1 in the last 68 regular-season non-conference home games against unranked opponents.

• Ohio State is 8-1 all-time vs. current Mountain West Conference teams, but this is the first meeting vs. Hawaii.

Final Thoughts and Score Prediction

I don't intend or view the following statement as underestimating or disrespecting Hawaii in any way, but the Buckeyes should be able to play their second team the entire game and get a comfortable win here. Since the starters are going to go ahead and play, I'll offer up this semi-conservative game prediction.

Ohio State 62
Hawaii 17

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"It takes a little something special to be a great player. We don't have enough great players. TO HELL WITH THAT! We don't want to coach average! I don't wanna be around ya, why be around average?! Did you push yourself to be great today?" - Urban Meyer

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Deja Vu For The Wolverines All Over Again And Again And Again—A Look At What's / Who's Coming To Ann Arbor This Fall

By HD Handshoe—BlockONation Founder

The Buckeyes will most certainly be steamrolling their way through Ann Arbor this November, led by preseason Heisman hopeful and favorite, RB Ezekiel Elliott, a slew of talented WRs, and whichever of the Big Three QBs gets the nod, or whichever is healthy by then. It's nice to have extra starters, not just backups!

Stephen Collier, Joe Burrow, and Torrance Gibson, be ready just in case young fellas!

Those of you reading this may be well aware that very often, I refer to the team up north as Ann Arbor Community College, or AACC for short instead, 1) because they call us Ohio and 2) they barely resemble a DI-level football program and they haven't won an outright national title since 1948, but I digress.

You are also aware that I keep track of how many days it's been since our last loss to AACC, which was during our 6 win, 7-loss, 2011 Tressell-less, Fickell-led season.

Enter Urban Meyer. Since 2001, the Buckeyes are 12-2 vs. AACC and Meyers' Buckeyes are 3-0. In spite of AACC hiring Jim Harbaugh, I have a hard time believing Urban and company won't rack up at least 2-3 more wins in The Game before they could actually be legitimately challenged by AACC.

Let's just say they have a lot of ground to make up to become a threat to the recent, lopsided, Buckeye dominance of the series.

It's entirely realistic that a lot of Buckeyes end their college football careers with four pairs of gold pants!

Get the gold pants mold ready again this year Bucks!

Much to your dismay, I'm sure.....see you in November Ann Arbor CC!

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Five Deep—A Closer Look at Ohio State's 2015 Running Backs

By HD Handshoe—BlockONation Founder

Image courtesy of Taylor Wilhelm

A lot has been made — and rightfully so — of the unique position Ohio State finds itself in this coming season, with essentially three starting quarterbacks returning, but that's a discussion to save for later this fall.

While what happens this coming season at quarterback is about as clear as mud right now, the running back hierarchy should be a lot less cloudy.

Despite having off-season wrist surgery, certain 2015 Heisman Trophy candidate Ezekiel Elliott sits atop a heap of young and talented backs.

Running back coach Stan Drayton left the Buckeyes and took a job with the Chicago Bears in February causing some speculation that the production of Elliott and company could tail off without him.

Drayton was instrumental in developing the Buckeye's potent rushing attack during his three years in Columbus.

He also played a huge role in the recruitment of highly-touted running back Mike Weber, who signed with the Buckeyes just one day before Drayton's departure. Initially, Weber seemed to react somewhat negatively on Twitter but in the end was happy with Drayton's replacement.

Ohio State hired former Notre Dame running backs coach Tony Alford, whom many consider a very ample replacement and possibly even an upgrade.

Truthfully with each of their exceptional running abilities, I could go Eight Deep with this article or list Braxton Miller, JT Barrett and Cardale Jones at 3, 4, and 5 on the RB depth chart.

That's how great Ohio State is at running the ball, but since the QBs aren't RBs, I'll shelve that thought for the sake of this article.

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How I see them stacking up

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5. Mike Weber — 4-star incoming freshman that could potentially challenge Ball and/or Dunn for the backup to the backup spot. If my memory serves me correctly, being the 3rd man up wasn't a bad thing last season,...not at all...

4. Warren Ball Jr. 2014 Stats — 18 carries, 88 yards, 4.7 yards per carry.

3. Brionte Dunn 2014 Stats — 9 carries, 63 yards, 7.0 yards per carry.

2. Curtis Samuel 2014 Stats — 58 carries, 383 yards, 6.6 yards per carry, 6 rushing touchdowns and 11 receptions for 95 yards.

1. Ezekiel Elliott 2014 Stats — 273 carries, 1,878 yards, 6.9 yards per carry, 18 rushing touchdowns and 28 receptions for 220 yards.

We may know a little more about where the RB chips will fall under Elliott once Spring football concludes on Saturday, April 18th.

Than again, there could still be some jockeying behind Elliott and Samuel through the end of August and right up to kickoff in Blacksburg against Virginia Tech on Monday September 7th.

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Week One: No. 2 Ohio State vs. Buffalo—History Lesson, Trends, Thoughts and Score Prediction

By HD Handshoe — BlockONation.com Founder

Before we kickoff the 2013 "History Lesson" season here at BlockONation, I thought this short video might get you more ready for Buckeye football than you already are—if that's even possible.



The No. 2 Buckeyes begin the 2013 season on Saturday as they play host to the Buffalo Bulls. ESPN2 will broadcast the game nationally at Noon.


Here are some historical-data-tidbits and a few recent and/or ongoing trends for your consideration that might be of interest.

Ohio State—Buffalo History Lesson And Recent Trends

• Ohio State is 32-2 in its last 34 season openers.

• Ohio State is 111-8-4 all-time in home season openers.

• Urban Meyer coached teams are 73-14 when ranked in the Top 25.

• Ohio State has opened the season with a win every year since 2000.

• Ohio State is 66-7 at Ohio Stadium since the start of the 2002 season.

• Ohio State and Buffalo are meeting for the first time on the gridiron.

• Ohio State is an astounding 275-0-1 all-time when scoring 35+ points.

• Ohio State is 17-0 vs. MAC teams since 2000, winning by an average of 27 ppg.

• Ohio State has won 34 consecutive home openers - Last loss was to PSU in 1978.

• Ohio State enters the season with the nation's longest winning streak at 12 games.

• Ohio State's defense has only allowed 13 100-yard rushers in their last 61 games.

• Ohio State's defense has held opponents to 10 points or less 37 times since 2006.

• Ohio State has held 73 opponents to 21 points or less since the start of the 2005 season.

• Ohio State has won 61 consecutive regular-season non-conference home games against unranked opponents.

A Couple Thoughts and Score Prediction

What to say about Buffalo? Hmmm. They are coming off a 4-8 season, and they probably aren't going to be very good in 2013. The good news is, I doubt there are many Bulls fans out there for me to offend with that statement.

Obviously the Buckeyes are superior and this game will be one-sided. The Bucks won't show much, or need to show much to win easily.

It should be interesting to see which young players get on the field and of those, which ones make a splash. That's all I got, so see you Saturday on Twitter—GO BUCKS!

Ohio State 55
Buffalo 6

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"It takes a little something special to be a great player. We don't have enough great players. TO HELL WITH THAT! We don't want to coach average! I don't wanna be around ya, why be around average?! Did you push yourself to be great today?" - Urban Meyer

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Finishing Touches: Highlights of BlockONation's Top 6 Ohio State 2013 Recruits

By HD Handshoe — BlockONation.com Founder

It's The Final Countdown.....bah-bah bah bah,......bah-bah bah bah bah,.......

Just be glad you're only reading this and not actually listening to me sing!

With signing day just one day away, and the the 2013 class more or less at capacity, it seemed like the appropriate time to shine the spotlight on the best of the best from this loaded class.

Words alone cannot express the ridiculous infusion of talent the top recruits that have committed to play football for Ohio State beginning this fall possess.

Thankfully, video can create a much more vivid picture than I or my words. Here are highlights of my personal top 6 recruits in the Buckeyes 2013 class.

No. 6 — Marcus Baugh / Tight End / Riverside, CA



No. 5 — Dontre Wilson / RB/WR / Desoto, TX



No. 4 — Ezekiel Elliott / RB / St. Louis, MO



No. 3 — Joey Bosa / DE / Fort Lauderdale, FL



No. 2 — Mike Mitchell / LB / Plano, TX



No. 1 — Jalin Marshall / WR / Middletown, OH



NSD Wishlist Bonus Video — Vonn Bell / S / Rossville, GA



Be sure to visit BlockONation.com for all your Ohio State football news, recruiting info and updates.

— HD

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