{"id":147,"date":"2006-09-27T12:21:59","date_gmt":"2006-09-27T19:21:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.montaraventures.com\/blog\/?p=147"},"modified":"2006-09-27T12:21:59","modified_gmt":"2006-09-27T19:21:59","slug":"osu-vs-iowa-on-saturday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/2006\/09\/27\/osu-vs-iowa-on-saturday\/","title":{"rendered":"OSU vs. Iowa on Saturday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nBased upon how the first 1\/3 of the season has played out, there are really only 3 realistic opportunities for <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/ncaaf\/teams\/oob;_ylt=AunVlrc_2MmNlXeoQTS.GY8cvrYF\">OSU<\/a> losses in the final 8 games (ignoring whomever the bowl opponent might be which would obviously be a 4th opportunity.) One of the regular season opportunities is this weekend, on the road, at night in Iowa City, Iowa against the 13th ranked, 4-0 <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/ncaaf\/teams\/iig;_ylt=AmJB2yXHWOaOthgSDMBzMTPA1LYF\">Iowa Hawkeyes<\/a>. The other opportunities are at <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/ncaaf\/teams\/mml\">Michigan State<\/a> and then <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/ncaaf\/teams\/mmk\">Michigan<\/a> at home.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nReasons why OSU could very easily lose this game:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Veteran, mobile quarterback in Drew Tate\n<li>Veteran, hard-running tailback in Albert Young\n<li>Hostile environment, at night, on the road\n<li>Veteran, active defensive line\n<li>Very good coaching from Ferentz and staff, Iowa is always fundamentally sound\n<li>OSU&#8217;s defense has been very good thus far, but they&#8217;ve not seen this combination yet and they&#8217;re due for an &#8220;off night&#8221; like the offense had last week against a physical Penn State squad with contributions in the form of rain from Mother Nature.\n<\/ul>\n<p>Iowa&#8217;s 4 victories have been against division IAA Montana, Syracuse (away without Tate), Illinois (away), and in-state rival Iowa State. None of these really give us a clue about the Iowa team other than the victory over Iowa State. The Hawkeyes beat them <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/ncaaf\/recap?gid=200609160028\">27-17<\/a> at home, Texas beat them <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/ncaaf\/recap;_ylt=AgprVntDdG8IEPJKtz_MPf2B1LYF?gid=200609230083\">37-14<\/a>, OSU beat <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/ncaaf\/recap?gid=200609090083\">Texas 24-7<\/a>. Transitive logic often fails in sports, but if it holds here, one would expect the Bucks to be victorious.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nReasons why OSU could very easily win this game:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Veteran, mobile, Heisman candidate quarterback in Troy Smith\n<li>Veteran, hard-running tailback in Antonio Pittman\n<li>Veteran, healthy offensive line (10 deep)\n<li>Veteran, world-class speed in WR corp (Ginn, Gonzales, Robiskie, Hartline, Small, Hall)\n<li>Recent success in hostile environments, at night, on the road\n<li>Veteran, active defensive line (8 deep)\n<li>Fast and hungry back 7 (generating 8 turnovers thus far)\n<li>One of the best &#8220;big game&#8221; coaches in football with Jim Tressel and staff\n<\/ul>\n<p>What will happen: The first half will be close, I&#8217;d expect that Iowa might even lead at half time, 10-7 or the like. The second half sees the Buckeyes pull away for a 31-13 win. Regardless, it should be a very interesting game and I&#8217;m really looking forward to it.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nMeatspace coordinates: <a href=\"https:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?f=q&#038;hl=en&#038;q=montara,+ca&#038;ie=UTF8&#038;z=13&#038;om=1&#038;iwloc=A\">N37.324 W122.309<\/a><br \/>\nOhio State\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 2006 record: <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/ncaaf\/teams\/oob;_ylt=ApiRDtt7p8MTZpktFXDiDqUcvrYF\">4-0<\/a> Next up: @Iowa 9\/30<br \/>\nTune: <a href=\"https:\/\/phobos.apple.com\/WebObjects\/MZStore.woa\/wa\/viewAlbum?playlistId=646166&#038;s=143441&#038;i=646158\">Please call me, Baby<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.officialtomwaits.com\/main.htm\">Tom Waits<\/a><br \/>\nTechnorati Tags:<a href=\"https:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/ohio+state\" rel=\"tag\"> Ohio State<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/Iowa\"> Iowa<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/football\"> Football<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/mike+harding+blog\"> Mike Harding Blog<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Based upon how the first 1\/3 of the season has played out, there are really only 3 realistic opportunities for OSU losses in the final 8 games (ignoring whomever the bowl opponent might be which would obviously be a 4th opportunity.) One of the regular season opportunities is this weekend, on the road, at night [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}