For the first half of this season and most of last season, I bitched relentlessly about Ohio State’s predictable rushing attack, complaining about how more than 90 percent of the time the Buckeyes lined up in the pistol, it was a run play. And more often than not, it was a stretch run to the boundary.
I begged and pleaded for Ryan Day to become less predictable – and I was not alone.
Unfortunately, Ryan Day appears to have listened to us a little too much. In an apparent quest to appease bloggers saying mean things about his offense, Day has totally jumped the shark with his offense. The offense seems to now revolve around being totally and randomly unpredictable – which also doesn’t work.
From my adopted uncle Ramzy Nasrallah of Eleven Warriors:
If Ohio State’s intention at 6-0 was to evolve into a jack-of-all-trades offensively, it worked. The Buckeyes have just sort of dabbled in whatever since that trip to East Lansing. Marvin Harrison Jr. caught as many touchdown passes in three quarters against the Spartans that afternoon as he had over the final six games, combined. He didn’t get worse. It’s not him.
The Buckeyes are decent running the ball. They’re now just decent airing it out. They appear to be refusing the opportunity to exploit or lean on their talent advantages anymore, which has downgraded the offense from daunting to just decent.
We’ve seen the potential and since the bye week, this ain’t it. Pick the datapoint of your choosing to make the same argument – the Buckeye offense has been recalibrated to randomized opportunity distribution, seemingly intent on involving aliens like Harrison, former walk-on Mitch Rossi and former walk-on Xavier Johnson equally.
Being *totally unpredictable* sounds pretty cool, but the problem is it doesn’t actually work practically. Nor is it what anyone was actually calling for.
What I think got misunderstood in all of these complaints about predictability is that tendencies – even very strong tendencies – aren’t necessarily bad things. It just means you’re doing something well as a team. You then force the defense to stop it and set up counters off of that, which is all anyone ever wanted.
The problem is, you never get good at one thing – which is “developing a tendency” – and the defense never has to stop anything, you can’t really build an offense out of that. Then you’re just calling random plays.
And the funniest part about this is that the person who explained this exact concept to me the best and most succinctly I have ever heard was… Ryan Day. Five years ago.
From me of Eleven Warriors from 2017:
“The starting point is getting something that you feel like you can run that a defense when they watch the film says ‘alright, we have to stop that play,’” Day said. “If you get good at something, then you can set up the counters off of that. But if you never get good at one thing and they never have to stop anything, it’s hard to build from there.”
This is the exact problem that we’re seeing with the offense right now. Nobody on the defense knows where the ball is going to go on either team, in the worst possible way. You can’t exploit a defense that way.
So please, for the love of God, go back to your bread and butter and put some life back into this offense. Run inside zone to set up play action. Throw to Marv on the sideline to open up the middle of the field. Run mesh to Egbuka to get them out of man coverage.
Make the defense stop your best players and your most successful plays before you draw up a low-percentage play to Cade fucking Stover multiple times in the most important game of the season.
- HANG
10040 ON ‘EM
The good news is, Ryan Day does seem to be at least aware of the fact that his offense – which is annually lauded as the top offense in the country – needs to score points if this team is going to win games.
From Joey Kaufman of The Columbus Dispatch:
“In these big games, whether it’s in the CFP or a game like that, the team that wins is north of 40 points,” Day said. “That’s kind of the goal.”
Day’s expectation isn’t far off.
Since the postseason format went into effect in 2014, winning teams in the semifinals and finals have averaged 39 points per game.
“If we’re not getting that in scoring at that rate,” Day said, “then we’re putting ourselves at risk of our offense relying on the defense. That’s OK too, to rely on your defense, but the offensive mindset has to be you have to be in that 40 or 50 range to win these games.”
Say what you will about the defensive performance against Michigan (giving up five scores of over 45 yards is certainly not good), but if the Ohio State offense would have shown up and made plays, that was a very winnable game.
If the offense was clicking in the first half, Ohio State goes into halftime with a 20-point lead against a team that isn’t built to play from behind. Reality is, the Buckeyes didn’t lose that game because of those five plays for 349 yards, they lost because the offense didn’t show up.
If you’re going to be an offense-driven team with an arsenal of first-round receivers, multiple first-round linemen, and the potential No. 1 overall pick at quarterback, you have to score points. You have to.
- HOME OF THE HEISMAN (CANDIDATE)
Yesterday, I was scrolling through my Twitter feed – as the chronically online tend to do – and I saw this absolutely incredible graphic.
A few thoughts here:
- Ohio State’s multimedia team is so egregiously good at their job.
- J.K. Dobbins got absolutely screwed in 2019 and should also be in this photograph.
- Holy shit, Ohio State is going to have five Heisman Trophy finalists in five years and not win a single one, or a single national title during that span.
- TALENTED TEEN, COME ON DOWN!
Ohio State’s cornerbacks have been perplexingly bad all year and are the reason why Michigan threw for 189 yards on three passes with fucking J.J. McCarthy at quarterback. And things are only gonna get worse next year with Cameron Brown gone with no immediate replacement emerging.
But folks, it looks like someone told the coaching staff about the Transfer Portal!
From Steve Wiltfong of 247 Sports:
247Sports reported on Sunday evening that standout Virginia cornerback Fentrell Cypress II was going to put his name in the NCAA Transfer Portal and the talented defensive back did that Monday morning, becoming the top-ranked player in the portal after the first day with a rating of 95. Schools from coast to coast have reached out.
Tennessee, Ole Miss and Syracuse were the programs that immediately reached out. As the day went on, talking to a source close to Cypress, Ohio State emerged as a contender.
The Buckeyes called a little after 4 p.m. ET and Tuesday morning a source said the Buckeyes are “on him hard.”
As things continue to shake out for Cypress, the source said that Ohio State is expected to be in the mix moving forward.
Adding the top-rated transfer cornerback in the country to address an area of concern would be a delightful turn of events. It’s a shame this definitely wasn’t an option last year!
EAT ARBY’S. Chinese students invent a coat that makes people invisible to AI security cameras… Nobody is prepared for how AI will transform academia… The race to build a better Twitter… Ordinary people are smuggling millions for drug dealers… How we could discover alien life…