I couldn’t hang onto this anymore. When ESPN’s Colin Cowherd hosted his midday radio show “The Herd with Colin Cowherd” in Columbus on the eve of Ohio State’s Homecoming game with Minnesota, the recurring topic was the tenuous state of the OSU offense. Throughout the four-hour national program, Cowherd offered his take on quarterback Terrelle Pryor after the sophomore self-destructed in a 26-18 loss at Purdue the previous weekend. He also grilled OSU head coach Jim Tressel on the topic during one segment.

But when ABC/ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit participated by calling in with his own two cents, the gauntlet was thrown down. A former Ohio State quarterback himself, Herbie pulled no punches when critiquing the execution of Pryor, the state of his blockers up front or the play calling by Tressel.

After Cowherd asked him to assess the situation, Herbstreit began his comments by comparing the elementary state of the offense to five years ago – the middle of the 2004 season. The following is the blow-by-blow from there:

“I think people at that point were ready for Coach Tressel to give up calling the plays – ‘This is a terrible offense.’ ‘He needs to hire an offensive coordinator.’ – and all of a sudden Troy Smith got a few games under his belt and ’05 and ’06 (followed) and he went on to win the Heisman Trophy,” Herbstreit said.

But just when it sounded like Herbstreit was beginning to defend Tressel, he continued in another direction.

“My point is, I think what happens with Coach Tressel is because his offense is don’t create turnovers, be smart, that’s his style of offense -- not attack the defense, just be smart on the offensive side,” he said. “And when he doesn’t have full confidence in his quarterback, he calls a very generic, very predictable, very vanilla game.

“And when you do that with a quarterback like Terrelle Pryor, who has terrible mechanics – his footwork is unsettling, his body language is uncomfortable, he doesn’t look happy – it just becomes a huge, obvious concern.

“And I think what he’s betting on is the more this kid plays, the more he’s going to be able to recognize defenses, and then eventually on the back end of all this there’s going to be a big reward. But Terrelle Pryor is going to determine that, his ability to work to become a complete quarterback. Forget about the NFL and forget about being the No. 1 ranked recruit.”

Herbstreit then began to talk in incomplete sentences but was on a roll.

His ability to work in the film room, work on his footwork … his footwork right now is horrendous – and his offensive line,” he said. “Historically for Ohio State, the one Achilles’ heel is their line is the most underachieving offensive line in college football every year. They’re big, they’re fat and their slow and they don’t attack off the line of scrimmage. So that is not necessarily something that is going to help his cause in developing as quarterback, so that is something he’s going to have to overcome.

“Really the ball is in Terrelle Pryor’s court because Coach Tressel is just going to wait for him to develop and then eventually he’ll open up the playbook. And if he doesn’t develop, then it’s just kind of going to be this generic offense just trying to survive.”

The “back end” Herbstreit refers to appears to be next season or maybe even the season after that at this rate. The back end of this year’s schedule is ominous: at No. 11 Penn State Saturday, home for top-10 Iowa on Nov. 14 and at archrival Michigan on Nov. 21.

Unfortunately, evidence to this point suggests that Herbstreit is right – that the offensive line can’t move well enough or drive defenders enough to open up holes consistently and that Pryor’s fundamentals are so poor he doesn’t stand much chance to suddenly find another level in three high-stress games.

Of course, there is always hope. Two games have passed since the ESPN talking heads summed up the national view of a hapless OSU offense and progress has been made. However, that was against a Minnesota defense ranked in the bottom third of the Big Ten in every conceivable statistical category and a New Mexico State team that, well, I’ve already made my feelings know about the quality of the Aggies squad that just visited Ohio Stadium

It’s time to go back on the road and the big boys are waiting. It’s time to do something other than sputter with the football if the criticism is ever going to abate this season.