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TRESSEL RULES FOREVER!!! (at Least Definitely, Definitively, and Unequivocally on the D Line)

+2 HS
yankeescum's picture
July 28, 2019 at 9:27pm

Alright, in response to all the people who said that Meyer's D-line was far superior to the athletes that Tressel's teams fielded, I have got to call bullshit.  

The Bosa brothers were pretty badass, but if you wouldn't take the single season record holder in sacks in Ohio State's history over a guy who played in three games his junior year, and pair him with Will Smith, go back and watch some of those games.  Will Smith was a damn machine, and played the run better than both Bosa brothers.  I don't give a shit if he was drafted later than Joey Bosa, that has got to be a push.  Do people actually believe that the Bosa's were better athletes than Will Smith?  Will Smith smoked both Bosa's in combine testing, and did just as much in his career as Joey.  Both Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, both All Americans, and both successful in the NFL.  

And that brings me to Vernon Gholston.  Forget when the Jets tried to turn him into a linebacker, a position that he had never played.  The guy was an absolute monster, and what Rex Ryan did to him should be a crime.  This was a 266 pound man who was running a 4.56 40 yard dash, Joey ran a 4.88, and Nick ran a 4.79. And his athleticism isn't even half the story.  Everyone on here is projecting the best year in the history of Ohio State defensive ends on Nick Bosa because the guy had 4 sacks in 3 games.  Vernon Gholston actually lived the best season in the history of Buckeye defensive ends.  Vernon Gholston had 4 sacks in 1 game.  Against Wisconsin.  When Gabe Carimi was playing (sure he was a freshman, but whatever can anyone name who Bosa beat against Oregon State, Rutgers or TCU?).  The guy was a legend against michigan, and was the only player in Jake Long's (the number one overall pick in the draft) last two years of college to record a sack against him.  The guy had more sacks in his junior year than the two Bosa brother's combined for in their junior seasons.  He is literally the single season record holder for sacks.  

Whatever coulda, should, woulda Nick Bosa might have been at Ohio State, he wasn't.  Gholston and Will Smith were.  

And defensive tackles.  

There is not a single player on the interior defensive line in all the years that Meyer was here that holds a candle to Cameron Heyward or Jonathan Hankins.  Not one.  Not close.  And he didn't have a bunch of slouches with Tim Anderson, Quinn Pitcock or Kenny Peterson either.  Michael Bennett in 2014 is the only one who could play with any of the last three.  

The Tressel d line isn't just better, it was hands down, far and away better than anything that Meyer could come up with in this bizarre hypothetical scenario.  And I would love to read what anyone who can't remember, or wasn't alive, or was still jacking off to the lingerie section of the Sears Catalogue, or crapping on their hands and rubbing on their face, or whatever they were doing while Will Smith was getting 20 tackles for loss and 10.5 sacks in 13 games instead of 15, and Vernon Gholston was living in Chad Henne's nightmares, has to say about that.  


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