Breaking: Beanie Wells downgraded to “doubtful” for Saturday’s USC game
Uh-oh. OSU coach Jim Tressel announced today that star running back Chris “Beanie” Wells is now “doubtful” for Saturday night’s game vs. #1 USC due to lingering soreness in his foot. Originally cleared to start as of Tuesday, Wells practiced Wednesday night and then sat out Thursday’s practice due to pain and soreness in his foot.
As of right now, USC is currently favored by either 10 1/2 or 11 (depending on your book of choice), and that number could grow and for good reason. Without Wells, Ohio State’s diminished running game may not be enough to compensate for the average quarterback play by 5th year senior Todd Boeckman against a very good USC defense.
So let’s hear it. How do you think this will affect the game? Can OSU still pull it off in So Cal? Fire away in the “comments” section.
UPDATE: After the jump Tim May’s comments on the situation…
Tressel said the team likely will wait until just before game time to determine whether Chris Wells can play, but that decision could come Friday if the soreness persists.
“We’ll see how this next 24 hours feels, and if he can move around,” Tressel said. “And the thing we have been saying all along is being able to move around and being functional at the job you have to do are two different things.
“The thing I have been reminding him of is that it is September and we have to treat things as as they should be, and medically, that’s the final decision.
September 11th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
We gonna get smoked! Dammit thats heart breaking. Beanie is very injury prone it seems. He just like adrian peterson at oklahoma. We gonna be like 4 td underdogs lol. I’m just playing bout us getting smoked tho. I think we gonna lose tho. I might not even watch it now
September 11th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Same site has this article, released two hours earlier-
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3580738
“Ohio State tailback Chris “Beanie” Wells worked out with the team in pads and is on target to play against No. 1 Southern California on Saturday night.
Jim Bollman, one of the Buckeyes’ two offensive coordinators, said he was encouraged by Wells’ play.
“I would say he was 75 percent, something like that. He got a lot of work today, certainly more than he’s had,” Bollman said. “We’ll see how sore he is tomorrow, then go from there.”
Darrell Hazell, also an offensive coordinator, said Wells had a good practice Wednesday and did not limp off.”
SOunds like Tressel and Bollman still haven’t gotten on the same page…
September 11th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Rick-
That is an interesting one. ESPNEWS is sticking with the “doubtful” as their “breaking” red banner as of now. God, I really do hope it was just Bollman screwing up and leaking that Wells is actually ok. I can dream can’t I?
September 11th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Even so, does a player at 75% make that much of an impact?
September 11th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Rick, the Bollman interview was from yesterday and was pertaining to yesterday’s practice……Tressel was stating that Wells was held out of today’s practice because of soreness after being involved in yesterday’s practice.
September 11th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
I’d put beanie in and on the 1st offensive play do a massive play action. Usc would bite really hard on that
September 11th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
At this point, 2008 just seems destined to go down as the year of incredible disappointment for fans of all Ohio teams (and that’s saying something), with injuries being largely to blame. This is what I hate about having high expectations–it’s so much easier to sneak up on people and be that out of nowhere team. While it wouldn’t shock me if the Buckeyes pull it off Saturday night, and I’ll be rooting hard for them, things look shaky.
As for the Browns on Sunday, getting a win in that one would go down as a minor miracle in my book at this point.
September 11th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
I don’t think the OU game is any indication of how good OSU actually is. Their defense only gave up seven points and grabbed four interceptions last weed. Besides, if you look, you will see that good teams have down games. We lost to Illinois last year, were we only that good? Cal lost to Stanford last year, are they only that good?
Every week is different and beating a team by two touchdowns isn’t all that bad.
We can’t call this season a bust until we actually loose a game this year. This game will decide what kind of year it is.
September 11th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
osu sucks!! you guys beat youngstown haha… youngstown, really? scraped past ohio!! After this mismatch of a week, who’s next another ohio high school team?? Trojans are going to smash all of you nutjobs…. Beanie or no Beanie you guys are done! FIGHT ON!!
September 11th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
↑
sent from my pink blackberry pearl while at tanning salon
September 11th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
http://www.the-ozone.net/flash/08-09/08-09-11/Tressel-08-09-11.html
Watch the video. Tressel never calls him “doubtful” until he is specifically asked to use that word. The first part of the presser is basically Tressel saying yeah, he’s a little more sore than we had hoped, but giving no indication of him not playing.
Then, my favorite part….he is asked if he would consider Beanie to be ‘doubtful’ or ‘probable’. After thinking about it for a second, Tressel says “I’m listing him as doubtful”, and then his lip quivers as he tries to keep a straight face.
This whole thing seems hilarious to me. It just reeks of smoke and mirrors. Tressel is using a lot of words like “we think” or “we hope”, being very careful about the words he’s choosing. I think this is just a little gamesmanship, and I think Tressel will have to tie Beanie to the flag pole if he wants to keep him off the field for this game.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
I’m kind of sad you used a picture of Akron….my hometown:(
September 12th, 2008 at 11:48 am
@ #9 – yes, much less impressive than beating Virginia…
something tells me he’ll play, and that this “doubtful” downgrade is more of a tactical ploy than anything else.