Pryor is impressive in victory
Terrelle Pryor has done this before, just not in college.
“I’ve been making plays all my life,”
Pryor said. “I’m not cocky. I’m just glad I can help out our seniors and get a win.”
The acclaimed freshman, who hasn’t even started classes yet, took charge of Ohio State’s offense with four touchdown passes to lead the sluggish No. 13 Buckeyes to a 28-10 victory over Troy on Saturday.
In the wake of an ugly 35-3 defeat at top-ranked Southern California, coach Jim Tressel had said that the nation’s top quarterback recruit last spring and senior Todd Boeckman would split the job 50-50 against Troy (2-1).
Instead, Pryor was first true freshman to start for the Buckeyes in 30 years, since Art Schlichter in 1978 and he ran the show for all but two plays before the game was out of reach.
“Coming off the loss to USC, I think we took a half-a-step forward,”
Pryor said.
Pryor’s touchdown passes covered 39 and 16 yards to Brian Hartline, 13 yards to Rory Nicol and 38 yards to Brian Robiskie. The 6-foot-6 standout from Jeannette, Pa., who won’t attend his first college class until next week, completed 10 of 16 passes for 139 yards with one interception. He also ran 14 times for 66 yards.
Boeckman, fifth-year senior, only played two snaps and the smallest crowd in Ohio Stadium in six years loudly booed him after an incompletion on one of those.
That prompted defensive lineman Lawrence Wilson to say: “Hey, we’re just kids. We’re not professionals. There’s no way that adults should treat us that way.”
Even though Pryor had a successful debut as a starter, the Buckeyes (3-1) led just 14-10 at the start of the fourth quarter, at which point Troy had more first downs and total yards.
“After they scored at the end of the first half to bring it to a four-point game, I thought our guys did a great job of rising up,”
Tressel said. He added, “Offensively, we’ve got a ways to go but we did some good things, had some new guys in there who hadn’t been in there much before, so it was a very valuable game.”
