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Pryor makes Lions cry

By Michael Amann

Terrelle Pryor was getting a raw deal from miffed Buckeye fans this season. For example, in response to my somewhat tongue-in-cheek article celebrating Pryor's therapeutic bouncing back against Minnesota, one brilliant mind suggested that "Prior" was "clue less[sic] as a [sic] efficient quarterback." While our readers may not be able to figure what is meant in that statement, the animosity is clear and evident. The commenter, named "Zanesville," suggests the hyped sophomore and offensive hero of the biggest win for Ohio State since the 2006 calendar year should transfer away. Obviously that was stupid. Try to contain your shock that uweekly.com commenters could possibly be wrong about something.

However, Penn State fans were truly despicable to our embattled QB. The students wanted make a shirt featuring Pryor's memorable anguished pose on the bench after his game-blowing mistake against Penn State at home last year. The athletic department, including Joe Paterno himself, aborted the mean-spirited ploy before it could take off. Despite their efforts, the television broadcast clearly showed an abundance of anti-Pryor white t-shirts. (A side note: how proud must we be of all the Buckeye fans who showed up to sully the infamous white out?). The PSU interwebs bristled with a non-stop bashing of the Pennsylvania native. You couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting some poorly photoshopped image mocking the second-year signal caller.

The game itself was not exactly an atonement of Pryor's 2008 bungling against our toughest Big Ten rival. His passing statistics were strictly pedestrian. Without Posey and Sanzenbacher sponsored bailouts, the mediocre Buckeye air attack would have floundered in its crib. Everyone who so much as glimpsed the stats from the game knows that any true hero in Happy Valley was on the defense. Pryor can only be credited for being the 12th most heroic at best. However, with an offense line still, uh, learning and a running back corps that is serviceable at best, Pryor gashed the team he scorned and made no mistakes. The same cannot be said for his senior counterpart.

Opposing fans are supposed to be complete dicks to the other teams' quarterbacks. Those quarterbacks are supposed to shut them up with three touchdown performances. They should not be playing against the cries and slurs of their own "supporters." Terrelle Pryor made the Nittany Lion fans look like the fools that they were. Casualties of his solid, game-winning performance were the unpleasable, impatient, moronic Buckeye fans who leapt off TP's bandwagon before it even had a chance to get rolling. No one is arguing for giving the gifted sophomore a carte blanche for the season. Hell, anyone with a memory can remember the shit I gave Boeckman. I can be critical of a Buckeye quarterback. The criticism of Pryor is unjustified and mean-spirited. He only needs to be a legend for one season, people.

Pryor picked a great time to have what was by all accounts the biggest performance of his career. A mistake-free game was all the Buckeyes needed in a contest that saw a team scrap by the skin of its teeth to even score one touchdown*. Craig Krenzel was (rightly) sainted for throwing "smart" incompletes and letting his destructor defense carry the day for an entire season. Pryor did the same thing against Penn State while having to also be much of the run game and without a competent line (or, you know, Maurice Clarett). Give the man a year and at least one addition to the offensive coaching staff, and we'll be tarring and feathering any idiot who asks him to transfer. I promise.

(*The 4th down touchdown call was not terrible. Sure Clark probably didn't get in, but it was hard to see what happened. The replay did not show evidence to overturn. What blows is that our defense has probably stopped two 4th-and-inches to goal situation in its two biggest games and gotten no credit for it. Bad luck more than bad officiating.)

Originally Published: November 11, 2009

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