I'll beileve it when I see it!
'Humbled' Terrelle Pryor says he wants to be OSU's QB as a senior in 2011
Cleveland Plain Dealer
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- To hear one Ohio State player tell it, Terrelle Pryor maybe wasn't a great teammate during his first two years as a Buckeye. Of course, the player explaining this was Pryor himself.
"I think I was a little arrogant, to tell the truth," Pryor said Sunday, speaking to reporters at Ohio State's team photo day. "You think about it and I came in as a junior in high school and everybody was praising me, everyone was being around me and everybody was telling me how I great I am. It can be kind of ... you lose your humbleness. And [now] I feel humble. I feel very humble, very appreciative."
No one's looking for a transformation from Pryor, now a junior with 23 games of experience since he took over as the starting quarterback in the fourth game of his freshman season. But everyone's always looking for progress.
Three days into Ohio State's preseason camp, his throwing motion seems even a bit more over the top, a continued improvement from his days slinging it as a freshman. His surgically repaired left knee, protected by a brace as it was in the spring, seemed fine as he rolled out and threw on the move during practice Sunday. His haircut has changed -- "a boxcut," Pryor said, "just a little old school, something different."
Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor takes a break during Sunday's practice. And restating what he said during spring practice, Pryor feels more comfortable with everything that goes into lining up, taking that snap and controlling a game.
"I really feel like I'm a quarterback now," Pryor said. "I feel like I can be a complete quarterback, but I can also run the ball. It's going to be interesting. I feel smarter and with how much I grew, it's going to be an interesting year for me."
Offered up for comparison, here's Pryor's description of himself a year ago at photo day, before his sophomore season.
"Right now, I'm a running quarterback," Pryor said in August of 2009. "I'd like to be a quarterback than can run someday. But right now, I'm a running quarterback."
So that's a change.
Pryor also said he's interacting more with his teammates and with people he runs across in his life. He said he's sitting up straighter in meetings, paying more attention, answering questions that aren't even directed at him.
"My freshman and sophomore year I wasn't trying to get better every day," he said. "Now I push myself because I got so close with the senior guys now that I want to go out with a bang."
A year ago, OSU coach Jim Tressel was touting Pryor's progress, but it was mostly about understanding the offense after a first year just trying to survive on talent. Tressel wasn't talking about Pryor as an old guy then. Now he is.
"I think he's played like a veteran these first couple days," Tressel said. "He's got such a foundation now that I've been very impressed with his summer and his first two practices."
Pryor claimed Sunday he's not ready for it to end anytime soon. Unprompted, he said he'd return for his senior season, which might be a smart move according to some draft analysts.
Pryor's far from the first player to promise to come back -- in recent years, running backs Antonio Pittman and Beanie Wells and receiver Anthony Gonzalez all talked about returning before passing on their senior seasons. But again, Pryor wasn't pressed on this. He was just looking into the future, just as he'd been looking at the past.
"I want to leave a legacy, that's my goal," Pryor said. "That's why I'll be here for four years. I can't wait. I'm so happy."
MADDEN ARRIVES AT MID-NIGHT
Critics: Madden 11 draws up new plays, still scores
yahoo.com
Hope you're ready for some football, because if you play video games, that's mostly what you'll be doing this week. EA's annual August Madden moment finally arrives on most major systems Tuesday, giving football fans the perfect way to kill time while waiting for Brett Favre to make up his mind. Again.
But while the legendary flipflopper loves the drama, EA loves to avoid it by doling out small changes to Madden year after year rather than massive revamps. Madden NFL 11, however, has decided to hurl a Hail Mary by tweaking the way plays are called, a feature that has remained fairly consistent for roughly two decades’ worth of gridiron greatness.
So should you strap on your gaming helmet and order a week's worth of pizza, or stick with last year's game and focus on your Fantasy team instead? According to critics, tuck $60 under your arm and juke towards your local retailer: Madden 11 is worth drafting.
IGN jumps right in and gets its hands dirty with Madden 11's biggest new feature: Gameflow, a one-button playcalling system that automatically chooses the best play for your given situation, turning marathon Madden games into much quicker experiences.
"If you're someone who's new to Madden or if the complexities of figuring out formation types was too much for you in the past, you're going to enjoy the bulk of what GameFlow does for you," says reviewer Nate Ahearn, though he points out that the artificial intelligence "makes some bone-headed play calls that...will likely be lamented by hardcore veterans of the series." Still, the game's got enough oomph to warrant a solid 8/10.
Game Informer's Matthew Kato goes a bit higher with an 8.75/10 review that calls Madden 11 "a clear step forward for the franchise." Why? In part because of the recharged ground game.
"Subtle cuts, bursts of speed (without the turbo button), sheer physical power, and other characteristics are layered on and make NFL players come alive and showcase the abilities that make some of them stand out from the crowd. The game makes you feel like you’ve got unprecedented control over the runner," he notes.
Madden 11's new Online Team Play feature -- which lets up to six players hit the field together, online, in the same game -- also feels the love. IGN calls it "one of the best gameplay modes to make it into a Madden game in a long time" that "lends itself very nicely to smack talking friends on your team," while game blog Kotaku believes the game "deserves praise" for leading the way in co-operative online play.
Unfortunately, MTV Multiplayer thinks Madden might have been co-opted a bit itself, calling the game's embedded advertising blitz "particularly aggressive."
"Every time you get into the red zone, anytime you get an in-game stat feed, or enter half-time, hit a big play, or even get an achievement, you'll see or hear something from a sponsor," says reviewer Brad Nicholson in an otherwise positive piece. This paragraph has been brought to you by Yahoo! Games, by the way.
The bottom line? Critics mention a variety of other flaws -- including a lack of changes to the Franchise mode, repetitive commentary and the soon-to-be-patched Strategy Pad -- but none of that seems to dissuade them from recommending it for newbies and vets alike. As Kotaku puts it: "Madden NFL 11 is loads of fun, and that's why you play the game."
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