Michigan State can win the Big Ten East if it defeats Penn State on Saturday. It won’t be an easy assignment. Elliott’s frustration boiled over and the Buckeyes will regroup in time for a game against MI in Ann Arbor. While Elliott was overzealous in publicly criticizing his coaches, there’s no reason to make this into something bigger than it is: a 20-year-old college football player letting his emotions get the best of him after perhaps the most frustrating game of his career. Still, Meyer added that the timing of Elliott’s comments were an issue. It just hurts. It hurts a lot because of how we lost. But he’s got to know how to handle that better. Meyer says he wished Elliott’s comments would have been made in private instead of during a postgame interview, but that Elliott came to him and apologized.
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But both lost to the Spartans on the final play of the game. “It’s really how he advances in terms of his healing, and that’s all I can say”, Dantonio said of Cook, who sprained his right shoulder in a November 14 win over Maryland.
Ohio State, which fell from No. 3 to No. 8 in Tuesday night’s latest College Football Playoff rankings, has won the last three meetings in the series, but those games were played when Brady Hoke was the coach at MI. They also need Stanford to beat Notre Dame in the last week of the season. I asked for those plays to be called.
“Our downhill run game with tempo is something we’re good at, but it’s not something you can do all the time”, he said.
The running back was angry at coaches for their play-calling, so angry, in fact, that he (along with Cardale Jones) threatened not to return to school next year. Ohio State shouldn’t have to apologize this much for one loss, but that’s life at a program that loses four games in four years.
Ohio State’s offense was a failure in every way.
“I don’t know if it’d be the smartest decision for any of us”, he said.
In the end, I like OSU on the home field 28-24.
Ohio State’s concern this year is fixing its problems, particularly on offense while going against a stout MI defense, and slowing down a Wolverines offense that’s on a roll the past few weeks. “We have a long way to go before we reach maximum capacity”. We’re going to find out what this team is made of this week. The Harbaugh era is off to a great start and a win over Ohio State will prove the Wolverines are back among the nation’s elite. It was just delivered at the wrong place and time.
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Elliott’s comments came after he ran for only 33 yards against the Spartans in the 17-14 loss, snapping his streak of 15 straight games with 100 yards or more. Inconsistent play calling is causing up and down performances from the Slobs and the quarterback. It’s possible that a one-loss Ohio State team could get in, as well, but that would likely require some medium-to-high chaos. Instead he unloaded on his coaches, saying they “didn’t put us in position to win…”
