O-lines let Henne, Smith down

By Darrell Laurant  |   Friday, January 12, 2007  |  Comments( 1 )

College Football
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Maybe Chad Henne and Troy Smith should form a two-man support group for battered quarterbacks.

Both players came into their marquee bowl games at the helm of favored teams, and both saw their offensive lines collapse around them like a group of 300-pound sand castles. Michigan's Henne was sacked six times by Southern Cal, Ohio State's Smith went down on five occasions against Florida -- and was belted a number of other times just as he released a pass.

Given the inevitable bruises, it was probably a whirlpool night for both of them, and both of their teams were convincingly beaten -- Michigan 32-18, Ohio State a stunning 41-14.

Ohio State's O-line, one of the biggest (and, supposedly, baddest) in the country, was supposed to perform the monster mash on Florida's smaller up-front defenders. But instead of trying to go through the supersized Buckeyes, Florida just went around them. And instead of being bad, the Buckeye blockers just looked, well, bad.

So don't take Troy Smith's Heisman away just yet -- the guy had no chance. Even though the Gators were rushing four (and sometimes just three) linemen, Urban Meyer's Gators blanketed the Buckeye receivers, forcing Smith to run for his life on numerous occasions. The Ohio State star completed just four his of 14 passes for 35 yards, the most colossal Heisman bowl flop since Jason White, and saw far more than he wanted of Gator DEs Derrick Harvey and Jarvis Moss.

True, the Buckeyes' best deep threat, Ted Ginn, Jr., hurt his ankle during, of all things, the end zone celebration following his return of the opening kickoff for a touchdown. You always hurt the ones you love.

But it wouldn't have mattered, given the ferocity with which the Gators pursued Smith. The Buckeyes could have had Terrell Owens and Marvin Harrison running routes for all the good it would have done them.

A week earlier, Henne's protection similarly cracked open like New Orleans' Ninth Ward levee in the second half, as Trojan defenders poured through and turned a 3-3 halftime tie into a rout.

"Michigan is a traditional offense," said USC DE Lawrence Jackson afterward, "and they don't try to hide what they do. They don't try to outthink you."

Give the ball to Mike Hart a lot, setting up play-action passes for Henne. Play strong defense if that doesn't work. That was Lloyd Carr's modus operandi. Yet the Wolverines played offense as if they were confronting another big, slow Big Ten team, sending Henne back on relatively deep drops that took a few extra seconds for the play to develop.

As coaches like to say, Jim Tressel and Carr will have to look at the film. And look at it again, and again, all during the off-season. It won't be fun to watch, but it's necessary. If they're as good as everybody thinks they are, they'll come up with some adjustments to counteract what the underdogs who embarrassed them before national television audiences did to them.

They'd better.

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