Oregon v Ohio State - A Tale of Two Stories - Part 5 Receivers/DB's

Today we'll look at the matchups between the receivers and the DB's.

First, let's look at the lineups, I've added all the backups since they may account for a substantial amount of stats and to account for injuries.  Stats are as follows for receivers (rec/yards/avg) and for DB's (tackles/ints/sacks).

	WR	WR	TE
Ohio State	Devier Posey	Dane Sanzenbacher	Jake Ballard
	6-3,205,So	5-11,175,Jr	6-6,256,Sr
Stats	52/727/14	27/506/18.7	13/126/9.7
Reserves\	Duron Carter	Ray Small	Jake Stoneburner
	6-2,190,Fr	5-11,180,Sr	6-5,230,RFr
Stats	13/176/13.5	15/175/11.7	2/30/15
	LCB	FS	ROV	RCB
Oregon	Cliff Harris	TJ Ward	Javes Lewis	T Jackson III
	5-11,160,Fr	5-11,208,Sr	6-1,185,So	5-10,182,Jr
Stats	16/1/0	58/1/0	77/2/2	46/4/0
Reserves\	Anthony Gildon	John Boyett	Marvin Johnson	Chad Peppers
	6-1,175,So	5-10,190,RFr	5-11,200,Jr	5-10,179,Jr
Stats	5/0/0	78/2/0	24/0/0	3/0/0

The first thing that strikes me is that the Bucks TE's only accounted for a total of 15 receptions for the entire year which would only be an average of just over a reception per game.  One could infer from this that the TE's are used for the run game or when used as a receivers out of the slot.  When one considers that tOSU is ranked 106th in the nation and 11 out of 11 in the B10 in passing yards, the receivers are not utilized as much as other teams.  However, having said this, the receiving corps accounted for 17 TD's for the season verses the run game's 20 TD's.  Sounds pretty balanced to me from that single standpoint.

As far as the Oregon DB's are concerned, from the high number of tackles being made by the secondary means just that, teams are getting into the secondary on Oregon.  If you are a running team against the Ducks, this should bode well (as in tOSU) for putting up some serious yards on the ground.  However and again having said all this, the Ducks are 38th in run defense at about 127 yards per game.  This would indicate that even though teams are getting into the secondary, they aren't getting very far.

Now for the flip side, we'll look at the Ducks receivers verses those potent tOSU DB's.

	WR	WR	TE
Oregon	Jeff Maehl	Lavasier Tuinei	Ed Dickson
	6-1,175,Jr	6-5,200,So	6-5,243,Sr
Stats	52/686/13.2	22/187/8.5	42/551/13.1
Reserves\	DJ Davis	Jamere Holland	David Paulson
	6-1,205,Jr	6-1,185,Jr	6-4,233,So
Stats	22/230/10.5	13/199/15.3	12/185/15.4
Ohio State	FS	SS	CB	CB
	Anderson Russell	Kurt Coleman	Devon Torrence	Chimdi Chekwa
	6-0,205,5th	5-11,188,Sr	6-1,193,Jr	6-0,188,Jr
Stats	43/3/0	64/5/1	33/2/1	43/1/0
Reserves\	Jaermale Hines	Orhian Johnson	Andre Amos	Travis Howard
	6-2,210,Jr	6-2,178,RFr	6-1,183,Sr	6-1,180,RFr
Stats	56/2/1	9/0/0	12/0/0	2/0/0

The first thing that jumps out to me here is the number of Int's tOSU backs have achieved over the course of the year.  All in all, tOSU has accounted for 23 Int's or almost two a game.  So at first blush one would think that tOSU's DB's are ball hawkers, however, of those 23 Ints, the DB's have only accounted for 13 Ints, which means that other team members have accounted for the other 10..  The Ducks managed just 10 on the year, of course our best DB's have been out most of the year as in all world WT3 and his backup Glasper.

Let's take a look at the stats by themselves:

Ohio State	Rec	Yrds	Avg
	122	1740	14.26
Oregon	Tackles	Ints	Sacks
	307	10	2
Oregon	Rec	Yrds	Avg
	163	2038	12.5
Ohio State	Tackles	Ints	Sacks
	262	13	2

Considering that the Ducks utilize their TE's far more in the receiving corps, it would appear that tOSU tends to have more +20 yard catches since their average is a little higher than the Ducks.  All in all I would say that both units match up very well with their counterparts.

What does all this mean?

It means that chances are as far as the passing game is concerning, it may come down to the big play and who has the most of them.  Both DB units match up very well against their respective receiving corps and we'll learn more as we look at the LB's tomorrow.

At this juncture in the analysis, I am thinking that it will all come down to the LB's.