Not surprisingly, Jim Tressel has indicated he is not planning on benching Terrelle Pryor or giving backup Joe Bauserman any playing time. As I mentioned the other day, Tressel has to consider benching Pryor at some point given the way he’s playing, but that none of us should hold our breath.

Tressel did what he had to do. If he still has any hope of Pryor emerging as a good quarterback for Ohio State, he needs to publicly support the kid when he’s down.

That said, there’s no doubt in my mind that Tressel in running various scenarios in his head. Pryor seems to be getting worse, and at some point Tressel’s hand will be forced if Pryor doesn’t improve. Naturally, Tressel will do all in his control to prevent that scenario, but he’s certainly thought it through.

When he arrived at Ohio State as the biggest recruiting prize in the country, Buckeye fans were hopeful that Terrelle Pryor would be the second coming of Vince Young. Instead, Pryor looks more like the next Juice Williams.

Terrelle Pryor’s performance in yesterday’s loss to Purdue was a disaster. It wasn’t simply a bad game from a young quarterback. Pryor has been getting progressively worse throughout the season. Rather, it was a performance that raised the question of whether Terrelle Pryor can ever be a good college quarterback, let alone the NFL quarterback he dreams of becoming.

Pryor had two fumbles and two interceptions. But his stats don’t tell the story here. When you watch Pryor play, you wonder why anyone ever thought this kid could be a good college quarterback. Pryor looked like a track star thrown into the game who had never played the position before. He lacks practically all the tools one would need to play quarterback, apart from his size and speed.

* Arm strength – Pryor can throw the ball, but he hardly has a gun. Most of his long throws look like heaves rather than smooth throws.

* Accuracy – Pryor rarely makes accurate throws. Even short throws seem to be a challenge.

* Mechanics – Pryor’s footwork and throwing mechanics are a mess. He’s not a natural at all with the ball in his hands. Sure, coaching can help, but the coaches aren’t developing a natural passing talent.

* Pocket presence – The Buckeyes have a weak offensive line this season, so that makes it more difficult to develop a young quarterback. But Pryor consistently panics in the pocket. He doesn’t seem to have any sense of how much time he really has to make a throw. Not surprisingly, he often relies in his incredible athleticism to buy some time for a possible pass or run, but he often seems to make the wrong choice.

* Decision-making – He rarely seems to do the right thing. How many times have we seen him run out of bounds under pressure and take a loss of five or more yards when he easily could have just tossed the ball out of bounds? He seems to throw when he should run, and run when he has an open receiver. On blitzes, he rarely gets the ball to the hot receiver.

* Leadership and temperament – Pryor often acts like an immature kid who can’t control his emotions. He’s only nineteen years old, so we need to cut him some slack here, but compare him to freshmen like Tate Forcier at Michigan and the surfer dude playing quarterback at USC. They seem to thrive under pressure, while Pryor seems to come unglued under pressure.

Jim Tressel made a good point early in the season when some were questioning Pryor’s play – Vince Young didn’t become Vince Young until his senior season. The message was clear – young players need to develop, and it’s unrealistic to expect them to come in a perform consistently this early in a college career. Tressel prides himself on his ability to develop young players and young men. He knows players and teams will face adversity, and he wants to help them face it and overcome it.

For this reason, we shouldn’t be surprised that Tressel didn’t pull Pryor against Purdue. He should have been pulled, but Tressel doesn’t have a great option sitting on the bench, and he probably wanted to see how Pryor would react in that situation.

As an Ohio State fan, it’s hard to imagine watching Pryor play quarterback for two more seasons. The Buckeyes are loaded on defense, and they have a solid offense as well, even with a mediocre offensive line. All they need right now to compete is a quarterback who can hit open receivers and avoid turnovers. They don’t need a Vince Young or even a Troy Smith. Put Craig Krenzel on this team and the Buckeyes are competing for a national championship. Instead, we have the Terrelle Pryor train wreck, and an excellent defense is being wasted.

Pryor chose Ohio State because he wanted a program that could help him develop as a future NFL quarterback. That seems like a pipe dream now. The kid needs to focus on just being a competent college quarterback.

What should Tressel do? Would sitting Pryor help? Tressel needs to consider this if Pryor continues to turn over the football. He owes it to the other players on the team.

In the meantime, short of benching Pryor, Tressel needs to rethink what he’s trying to do on offense (the issue of Tressel calling the plays will be addressed another time). We can see he’s already tried to incorporate the option more into the offense, but we’re seeing that Pryor’s instincts aren’t much better there. Perhaps with practice he’ll get better, as the option at least plays to his running ability. Tressel should toss aside a good chunk of the playbook and go to a much simpler offense. Focus on running the football, the option, and other Wildcat-type plays, and have Pryor make much simpler throws that play off the running game. Dig up old tape from Oklahoma and Nebraska from the 1970’s, or even most of the Woody Hayes years. Keep it simple until the kid shows he can handle more.

Buckeye fans often get frustrated with Tressel’s conservative play-calling, but opening up the offense is not the solution here. He has to pull things back and start over. And, if Pryor can’t cut it in a simpler offense, then Tressel will have to make a change.

That was a tough loss for the Buckeyes on Saturday night. They had the game, but basically handed it to USC at the end. The defense played great all night, so you can’t blame them for the game, though the last drive was very disappointing.

-Tressel needs to give up the play calling. We’ve said this over and over again. Tressel can’t seem to manage the game properly. He’s been out-coached in big games that have turned into blowouts, and he’s also watched as his team’s have blown leads on the final drive. He needs to make a change.

-Terrelle Pryor has a long way to go. He’s a physical specimen, but his decision-making sucks. While we can criticize Tressel for his calls, Pryor had real trouble executing the game plan. He took way to many losses in the backfield. He never seems to know when he should throw the ball away. His accuracy also sucks. Based on what we saw on Saturday, this kid will never be an NFL QB. He needs to focus on being a good college QB first, and that means using his head AND his legs to move the ball.

-The D-line is awesome. We heard plenty of talk about the USC o-line, and how they had a bunch of NFL forst-rounders. Well, either their stock fell or the stock of the Buckeye d-linemen shot up as they made big plays all night.

-The o-line is pretty bad. This is a huge disappointment for the Buckeyes. They need to take a long look at their recruiting. They seem to find plenty of big white guys from Ohio, but few of them have real athleticism. Size isn’t everything, so they need to figure out how to narrow their focus on guys that can play the game.

This game was a tough one to take. Jim Tressel has been a great head coach, and it’s great to see the Buckeyes competing every year, but he needs to step up his game and adopt to the new reality. Find the best young coach out there and make him your offensive coordinator.

This is understandable in one sense given recent history, but it’s also ridiculous when you consider that Terrelle Pryor has the ability to carry a team on his back. If Tressel sticks with the option and the QB running plays we saw against Navy, then they should be able to move the ball and neutralize the problems they have on the offensive line. Pryor will need to make some big plays and avoid turnovers for the Buckeyes to win, but he’s certainly capable of doing just that.

Also, USC will be relying on their running game. While that is a real threat, this should make for a closer game as long as Ohio State avoids giving up the big run. The key here is the Buckeye d-line. If they can step up like they did last year in Texas, then the Bucks have a real chance.

Finally, we have the issue of USC’s freshman QB. He may play great – he may not. Nobody really knows what will happen. But a poor performance gives the Buckeyes a real chance of winning this game.

Jim Tressel’s game management sucked, but fans shouldn’t worry much about that when evaluating the first game. The bottom line with Tressel is that he’s always learning about his teams early in the season, but despite the close scores he rarely loses games the Buckeyes are supposed to win. That said, his decision to pass on the field goal in the fourth quarter was stupid, and he should stop using his backup QB in the second quarter. Put the game away, and THEN start playing the backups.

As for the team, Terrelle Pryor looked great, and that’s the most important factor to consider when evaluating the prospects for the Buckeyes this season. Just as important, Tressel is using him properly. He ran numerous option plays, QB draws and roll-outs. They will need to ride Pryor’s legs if they want to make a splash this season. But Pryor did more than that. He threw the ball well and made completions when he also could have run the ball. This will make his running even more lethal if defenders have to respect the pass.

Brandon Saine also looked good splitting time with Dan Herron, giving the Buckeyes a solid rotation at tailback, and the young receivers also looked good.

On the downside, the offensive line doesn’t look very good. They had some good moments, but they were very inconsistent. Pryor obviously can avoid the rush so they can work around this, but the o-line has to improve if they want to beat USC.

As for the defense, they did fine, though it’s hard to learn much given that Navy was running the triple option. We’ll see how they do next week when the Trojans invade the Shoe.

Pryor is the key. If he develops as expected, the Buckeyes can beat anyone when he plays well. He seems ready to take on the challenge.

Football season won’t be here for a while, but Mark Schlabach has updated his pre-season Top 25 now that national signing day has passed. He has the Buckeyes at #7, which seems about right.

7. Ohio State Buckeyes. The Buckeyes suffered heavy personnel losses from the team that lost to Texas 24-21 in the Fiesta Bowl. Linebackers James Laurinaitis and Marcus Freeman, receiver Brian Robiskie and cornerback Malcolm Jenkins were seniors last season. Then tailback Chris “Beanie” Wells and receiver Brian Hartline decided to skip their senior seasons and enter the NFL draft. Terrelle Pryor should improve in his second season as a starting quarterback, and the Ohio State coaches feel confident about tailback Dan Herron, who filled in well when Wells was hurt in 2008. Pryor must become a better passer during the offseason, and the receiver corps will have to be rebuilt. There won’t be much time for the Buckeyes to jell, however, as USC will play in the Horseshoe on Sept. 12.

The Buckeyes are fortunate tha Mark Sanchez decided to leave USC for the NFL draft. It gives them a much better chance in the early-season showdown.

As a side note, what the heck is Brian Hartline thinking?