After his dismal effort last week in a loss at Purdue, Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor rebounded as the Buckeyes trounced Minnesota 38-7 on Saturday.

Outside of his 62-yard touchdown pass to DeVier Posey early in the second quarter, Pryor looked as bad in the first half as he did against Purdue. He underthrew open receivers, forced passes into coverage and threw an interception right before half that killed a potential scoring drive for the Buckeyes.

But in the second half, Pryor used his legs to move the chains and his decision-making was much better. On one play in particular, he escaped a potential sack and once he scrambled towards the sideline, he threw the ball away instead of forcing it to a covered receiver. He finished 13-of-25 for 239 yards, two touchdowns and the one interception, while also rushing for 104 yards on 15 carries.

This performance certainly doesn’t erase how bad Pryor has looked at times this season, but maybe the game will give him confidence going forward. Maybe he did learn something from the loss to Purdue last week.

Minnesota gave Ohio State so many opportunities in this game. They turned the ball over four times, which included fumbling the opening kickoff of the second half. Without receiver Eric Decker, the Golden Gophers are absolutely hapless offensively.

Ohio State sophomore quarterback Terrelle Pryor’s high school coach doesn’t like the way Jim Tressel is utilizing his former star.

From ESPN.com:

“They need Terrelle to run more,” former Jeannette (Pa.) High School coach Ray Reitz said. “They’ve put the reins on him and they need to let him go free. When I watch Terrelle play right now, I see a robot.”

Reitz, now the coach at Latrobe High, said Pryor was recruited on the premise of a more diverse offense.

“All I know is they promised him that they would teach him a pro-style system with both a shotgun and under center,” Reitz said. “Jim Tressel is a great coach and he’s been running his offense successfully for 30 years. But I’d like to see some zone-read plays where with one mistake [by the defense], he can be gone. With some zone-read plays, they wouldn’t be able to take away all the outside runs because he’d being a threat to go between the tackles.”

Reitz said he believes that Pryor is being affected by criticism — though he would never admit it.

“It’s gotten to the point where I turn the volume down when watching TV now,” Reitz said. “I believe the criticism has seeped into his mind. I’m sure there are some mechanical issues. But all I know is he was accurate when he was in high school.”

Reitz said it would be a mistake to move Pryor to wide receiver — a move which Tressel said does not figure into his plans.

“He would be a great wide receiver or even a great linebacker,” Reitz said. “But that doesn’t mean you should move him from quarterback. In fact, I don’t think he’d agree to a move to wide receiver. Give him time to grow. Put the ball in his hands and if there is a breakdown let him run. It doesn’t look to me like he’s relaxed. It doesn’t look like he has rhythm. It doesn’t look like he’s comfortable.”

Tressel’s questionable game planning and playcalling aside, Pryor hasn’t shown that he can handle even the basic fundamentals of the position yet. His footwork is sloppy, his mechanics aren’t sound and he isn’t accurate. So this notion that Tressel isn’t using him effectively is a moot point right now because Pryor needs to figure out the basics of the position first.

But I agree with Reitz that Pryor shouldn’t be moved to another position yet. If he continues to regress at quarterback, then Tressel can re-assess the situation at the end of the year. But Pryor is only a sophomore and is still learning so at least for the time being, OSU should continue to try to shape him as a quarterback before moving him to another position.

One of the criticisms that Ohio State sophomore quarterback Terrelle Pryor faced after the Buckeyes’ loss to USC last Saturday in Columbus was that he didn’t use his legs enough to make plays. Not only that, but he was hesitant to throw the ball vertically and often settled for safe passes under 10 yards.

But in OSU’s 38-0 beat down of Toledo on Saturday, Pryor resembled the quarterback that Buckeye fans envisioned he would be last week. He racked up 110 rushing yards and a touchdown on 12 carries while also throwing for 262 yards and three TDs on 17-of-28 passing.

Granted, Pryor did throw two interceptions, but he threw passes of 76, 28, 15, 13 and 12 yards to six different receivers. His 76-yard touchdown pass to Dane Sanzenbacher on the Buckeyes’ third offensive play from scrimmage set the tone for the rest of the game.

This is the Terrelle Pryor that the Buckeyes need to see more of, especially in big games. While it’s nice to see him rack up these kinds of numbers against any opponent, as he continues to develop as a quarterback he needs to trust his arm and legs to make things happen against elite competition.

This was a nice bounce back game for both Pryor and Ohio State. They’ll host Illinois next week in their Big Ten opener before facing Indiana on the road on October 3 and Wisconsin at home on October 10.