Tressel knows what he'd like to see from Pryor

COLUMBUS – Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel and the critics of his quarterback, Terrelle Pryor, can agree on at least one thing.

They all can see eye to eye on what would constitute a good game by Pryor.

Talking about his sophomore quarterback at his weekly press conference on Tuesday, Tressel said, “Here’s what would interest all of us (from Pryor): run for 110, throw for 250 and be 6-0.  That’s what the second half of the season goal is and we’ll see if we can go after it.”

In the first six games for the No. 7 Buckeyes (5-1, 3-0 Big Ten), Pryor has hit that target only once, rushing for 126 yards and throwing for 262 in a 38-0 win over Toledo the third game of the season.

   Pryor’s 56 percent completion percentage and his average of 158 yards a game both rank 10^th in the Big Ten, behind every starting quarterback in the conference except Illinois’ Juice Williams.

   In two of Ohio State’s last three games, Pryor has thrown for fewer than 100 yards and his completion percentage was below 50 percent for the second game this season when he hit only 5 of 13 for 87 yards in a 31-13 win over Wisconsin last Saturday.

   Tressel indicated he thought Ohio State’s lack of offense (164 total yards) against Wisconsin was an overall offensive problem, not just a quarterback problem, and said Pryor shouldn’t shoulder an excessive amount of the blame.

   “I think the thing you do is understand that when things go just right, I probably didn’t do it by myself and when things don’t go the way you’d like, it probably didn’t have everything to do with me,” he said.

   Ohio State and Pryor will play at Purdue (1-5, 0-2 Big Ten) on Saturday.  The Boilermakers have lost five games in a row but have given up only 12 points more than they’ve scored.

   One of the losses was by two points at No. 13 Oregon and another was by three points at home against No. 25 Notre Dame.

   Danny Hope is in his first year as the Boilermakers’ coach after the retirement of Joe Tiller, who brought a pass-oriented offense to Purdue for the last 13 years.  Not a lot has changed on offense this season, with Purdue’s Joey Elliott (1,575 yards, 12 touchdowns, 9 interceptions) leading the Big Ten in passing yards.

   “They threw it about 50 times Saturday (in a 35-20 loss to Minnesota), didn’t they?  That’s not far from what they’ve typically done,” Tressel said.  “Defensively, I don’t see them being a whole lot different.”

   Offensive lineman Jim Cordle should be ready to return after missing the last four games with an ankle injury, Tressel said.  He doesn’t expect Cordle to be ready to play a whole game, though.

   Running back Dan Herron, who aggravated a sprained ankle against Wisconsin, will probably miss this week’s game.  “He probably got set back a week or two,” Tressel said.

   Tressel also stepped away from his usual refrain about playing them one at a time and alluded to running the table in the second half of the season.

   “It’s interesting in that our guys work out all year long and they’re halfway through the season and yet there’s only about 40 days, maybe 30-some days left that are going to really decide what kind of football team we have,” he said.