Ohio used an awful lot of stuff on defense, so no, not really. I just think Idaho has a pretty decent offense, and did a good job on their short passing game. Think about it - pretty much every short pass was on the money, and the passes were rarely, if ever, dropped. Most of Linehan's incompletions were on his long pass attempts, and his one poorly thrown short pass was tipped and intercepted. Still, even with all his completions he only averaged 6 yards per attempt, which is not very good. While he completed the passes, Ohio usually had pretty good coverage, and was on the receivers quickly.

Most of Idaho's drives would have failed had then not gone for it on 4th down, and almost always succeeded. That was the part that drove me crazy. Had they been a more reasonable 3 of 6 on fourth down instead of 5 of 6 they would have had 14 less points, and the defense would have seemed much better. Ohio definitely needs to work on it's defense on 4th down or a lot of teams will try that. That's #1 in my book in the list of things they need to improve at between game #1 and game #2.

In retrospect, the Idaho writer was dead on to question Idaho's vertical passing game. It sucks, to be honest. Maybe that's why Petrino was so touchy about the question.

As for Marshall, I do think that the mix of what they use will be much different against them. Marshall was very, very effective against Ohio's Cover-4 defense last year, because they had a very effective vertical passing attack. Even with Cato gone, I have concern about this game.

Yes, Sir, Jeff, I do.

Some on here don't give our coaches much credit for strategic thinking.

The ESPN replays really help. So much better than the radio coverage. Totally different perspective. O Line, on both TDs #7/#21 the comment was the same; "this is entirely too easy." Credit OL. I noticed during Patterson's drive the left side was #65,#75 & #54. Right was #57 & 79. At that point the Ohio starters were still popping with very good movement while Idaho's DL appeared totally gassed. Credit strength and conditioning. Altitude, no effect. Across the board, Ohio better prepared. For Idaho; Epps, Penny, Linehan and their D front seven are better than they showed. Given Ohio's coaches they could be a whole lot better. JMHO. Next week will be totally different. Back against a team that will expect to win, with better athletes who will be better coached. Oh, #57, sooo glad to see him back. Defense. Wish there was a replay of Bass vs Penny. Ints by by #51 & #35. Good tackling, 12 solo by QP. I know the D is disappointed by the points allowed. They will have to credit; Linehan, Epps And Penny, some good players for Idaho.

After the game, Petrino said "I thought our D-Line was going to have an advantage versus their O-Line and that was not the case.” I think that's an oversimplification. Early in the game, their D-line played very well. They were doing a good job of stopping OUellette, and they were getting pressure on Vick, including a sack and a sack-fumble. The longer the game went on, the less that was the case, and by the fourth quarter Ohio's offensive line was firmly in control. On Ohio's final two drives they ran a combined 12 running plays and 2 passes, and the running plays averaged about 7 yards a carry, and 8 of the 12 went for 4 yards or more.

The interesting thing is that on the last two drives of the game, Ohio ran the ball 12 of 14 times, or 86% of the time. On the first two drives, Ohio ran the ball 3 of 10 plays, or 30% of the time. At the start, Idaho was focused on stopping AJ, which they did, but they gave up big passing yardage. Once Idaho adjusted and was covering the passes, their defensive line was tiring, so Ohio ran it at them.