Pryor's a long way from a big-time QB

"Athletes” like Terrelle Pryor carry a truckload of expectations with them when they commit to a Division I program.

While their athleticism might go unchallenged, it alone doesn’t ensure they will master the nuances of playing the most demanding position in college football.

After his performance Saturday against Purdue, the athletic Pryor proved two things: No. 1, he isn't improving much; and, No. 2, he isn't ready to quarterback the Buckeyes with the precision and the polish the program needs.

Now, the criticism here isn’t altogether based on the fact the No. 7 Buckeyes lost, 26-18, to an ordinary Purdue team. A week earlier, they won, and the criticism was the same. For in that game, Pryor played as badly as any quarterback could play and still come away with win.

But that performance was against Wisconsin, an unbeaten, though untested team with aspirations of winning a Big Ten title.

Purdue, of course, had no such title hopes tucked away in its locker room. The Boilermakers had been leaking losses, and their 1-5 record suggested they would be fortunate to escape with all hands healthy.

Their record did reflect the quality of the team. What their record didn’t illustrate was how having a capable quarterback like Joey Elliott can keep a game close. He was no Tim Tebow or Sam Bradford; Elliott didn’t have to be. All he needed to be was the best quarterback on the field.

And he was.

That’s the damnable part of it. For Elliott didn’t have the much-hyped credentials of quarterbacks like Pryor, USC freshman Matt Barkley or Notre Dame junior Jimmy Clausen.

Hype can be a player’s undoing. It can lead to inflated expectations that no athlete can live up to, and maybe that’s the problem with Terrelle Pryor: He’s a prisoner of this hype.

In two seasons, he’s developed little. He’s a mechanical passer who locks in on a receiver. He has the touch of a blacksmith, chucking dink-and-dunk passes with helter-skelter accuracy all over the landscape. His pocket presence and awkward footwork resemble a passer who’s in the lineup for his second or third game.

At some point – and that point looks as if it has arrived -- coach Jim Tressel must reevaluate what he has in the underwhelming Pryor, a sophomore. It could be that Tressel entrusted his offense to Pryor too soon. Maybe, just maybe, Pryor’s athleticism works best for Ohio State at a wide receiver and not at quarterback.

For Tressel, a conclusion like the latter might be unthinkable. Dare he bench Pryor? How can he? Ohio State coaches chased Pryor with a dogged determination not used on very many football recruits. It made sense that Tressel go all out to land Pryor, the darling of elite programs from coast to coast.

Could the coach really risk seeing Pryor sign with Michigan?

Two years later, Tressel and the Buckeyes might be better for it had they let Pryor go to Michigan or somewhere else. He has done nothing to show people that he’s capable of greatness. He has shown only mediocrity, which is what frustrates Buckeyes fans.

They longed to see a quarterback who could win championships, a quarterback who could create magic with his legs and with his arms. Buckeyes fans thought they had that magical quarterback in Terrelle Pryor.

They thought wrong.

Pryor restraint: OSU falls apart – again

It wasn’t the death march to the gallows – not the slow, measured trek to a public execution -- that so many had predicted. In the end, the biggest game Saturday just concluded in another loss for Ohio State to Top 5 team.

All things had been pointing to a demoralizing blowout for the No. 8 Buckeyes, regardless of the fact they were playing No. 3 Southern Cal inside The Horseshoe and the Trojans were starting freshman – and not a redshirt freshman -- Matt Barkley at quarterback. But the game wasn’t a blowout; it was an 18-15 nail-biter.

None of that meant much to the Buckeye faithful.

Not in The Horseshoe. Not in Columbus. Not anywhere Ohio State goes when its opponent on the other side of the football field is more than Navy or the Mid-American Conference punching bags the Buckeyes fatten their out-of-conference record on.

The Trojans, who have beaten Big Ten opponents 10 straight, resembled those lesser programs the way Tiger Woods does a weekend hacker with a 18 handicap.

In this game, the Trojans showed an unshakeable will to win. Not once did they put their sleek, young quarterback at serious risk. They let their defense dominate late, and it displayed the kind of toughness, discipline and quickness that secures Southern Cal's place among college football’s aristocracy.

Forget about the fact USC coach Pete Carroll had to rebuild his defense from scratch. It didn’t matter. Carroll dipped into his deep pile of talent and found replacements better than anything coach Jim Tressel had to counter them.

Tressel had no schemes – and no clue how -- to exploit the Trojan defense or to free his quarterback Terrelle Pryor for long runs or efficient, quick-strike passes. At times, the skittish Pryor looked to be operating a short-handed offense: something in the order of nine against 11.

Yet that’s been routine for Tressel’s Buckeyes. Time and again in the past five years, they have come up against top-tier programs and fallen apart.

Coming into this season, no one but the most rabid fan had penciled Ohio State down as a contender for a National Championship. Next year, its fans said. For the Big Ten title, sure; a conference title was doable.

But the Big Ten isn’t much of a football conference these days. Michigan State lost to Central Michigan, after all. OK, Michigan did beat Notre Dame, but how good are the Fighting Irish anyway?

So winning the title means what?

Teams in the Big Ten live on yesteryear’s successes. Those yesteryears were in the long ago. In the present, in these Saturdays that tick toward bowl selections, the Buckeyes and their Big Ten brethren have plenty to prove.

That became clear from watching the Trojans wear down the Buckeyes, a team that most were calling the best in the conference.

For Tressel and his Buckeyes, the conference title – and, of course, beating Michigan again -- is about all that remains. Both are nice consolation prizes, ones that Ohio State fans can think about as they replay in their minds another loss to a big-time program.