Offense

Here is an offensive play-by-play analysis of the Akron game, a continuation of a series I have done here for the last several weeks. I did one for Tulsa last week here. You can find the Oregon game as well by following a link chain. Also, this format is borrowed from MgoBlog, the latest of which can be found here, if you fancy scouting the enemy.

Before we get to the play-by-play, let’s recap the major storylines going into Akron, the biggest being Kyle McCord’s first start following CJ Stroud’s injury. This is an extension of the other major storyline this year: the offense’s lack of cohesion and the questions CJ Stroud’s performance. Also, in the play-by-play chart, I accidentally used Belly Zone/Inside Zone instead of Duo a lot. Forgive this mistake; I am still learning the differences.

So, how did the backup quarterbacks do? Should McCord start over Stroud? Can you really learn anything from playing Akron? Here’s the play-by-play:

Alright, so there is much to take away that, even though it is just Akron. First, Ryan Day does not look to be shaving, and is growing the off-season beard. Ominous.

With all of the offensive success, it should be nothing but positives, but there were a couple of concerning points on the individual player charts, primarily with the quarterbacks. First, let’s discuss the passing chart, as this is the biggest storyline on offense so far. I have started to not chart screens/swing passes, as they skew the downfield passing chart to favor screens and short passes over downfield throws. Additionally, those plays are in essence extensions of the run game rather than an element of the downfield passing game. I am still charting check downs though, as they are closer to extensions of the scramble, or, that is to say, they are salvaging pass plays rather than glorified runs.  I also didn’t like that Stroud’s Tulsa and Oregon games looked the same, despite being very different performances. This has also lead to a weighted scores system, where perfect passes and bad reads are doubled in terms of impact to reward phenomenal throws and punish throwing into coverage. I have re-charted the last two weeks’ games accordingly. Here are this week’s passing charts:

I am going to say something that brings me no joy, but Ryan Day was being generous when he said that Kyle McCord played OK considering the competition. I think it was mostly to keep him positive and confident. A good game should not have been expected by a true freshman. Having said that, this was a performance that was average at best against the second worst team in college football. For these scores, an average-to-decent day is between 60-70%. 70-80% is a good to great game. 80% and above is elite. McCord’s weighted score was below 60%, which is not good. I even gave him the benefit of the doubt with the charting. I thought the touchdown pass to Smith-Njigba with 10:32 left in the second quarter was a pretty borderline throw. I called it a good pass, even though I thought he missed his spot, especially since JSN looked to confirm the inaccuracy of the pass in the postgame interview. JSN still caught it, and it was a touchdown, so I gave it to him. I also called the interception with 13:30 to go in the third an inaccurate pass instead of a bad read, which would have hurt his weighted score. Finally, I didn’t love the throw to Garrett Wilson that was caught one handed either, as, although he did throw the ball away from the safety, Wilson had to make a circus catch and got hammered by the defender. This pass was also one I considered calling a bad read, but decided to call it okay instead. Even with these concessions being made, he still scored significantly more poorly than Stroud has this year.

This performance leads me to my mildly spicy take of the week: an injured CJ Stroud is a better option than a healthy Kyle McCord, and Stroud needs to be the starter. For a quick PFF comparison, McCord’s passing game against Akron was rated at a 55.6, with Stroud at Minnesota (his worst game) being rated at a 74.1 passing grade. This gap is nearly twice the size of the gap between Tommy Eichenberg (57.1) and Cody Simon (66.7). I haven’t seen anyone call for Eichenberg to play over Simon yet, but maybe I haven’t been paying attention.

This isn’t to say that McCord didn’t have his moments. I thought he made a nice dump-off pass to Smith-Njigba, who was coming off of Jet Motion, with 12:26 in the second quarter. I say it was a nice dump-off because JSN was clearly not his first read, and he showed poise by making the throw after going through his progressions. There was no panic. I also liked that, with 0:14 to go in the first half, he made an easy throw to a wide open Wilson to set up the field goal, which is what he is expected to do. His throw to Egbuka with 11:29 left in the third quarter was also good, not so much for the throw, but making the correct read with the RPO Glance route, and putting the ball just over the defender. He also clearly saw/understood the defender’s leverage, and where Egbuka was going to be after the read occurred. He was good with reads all day, only missing one charted.

There were still issues. The aforementioned interception was not good, and his two sacks weren’t great either, though one of them was not his fault at all. He doesn’t seem to get rid of the ball as quickly as Stroud. Some of my disappointment was a lack of any real eye-popping plays from McCord. Stroud’s lone jaw-dropping play last week was the ball dropped by Olave after somehow escaping a sack, although the deep pass to Olave that was called back was also impressive. Against Oregon, he had 9 throws that were difficult, NFL-level throws based on ball-placement. McCord had none of these moments against Akron.

One of the biggest frustrations with Stroud is that he overthrows wide open receivers too often. The silver-lining to this is that Stroud is consistently finding wide open receivers. With the exception of Wilson’s route to end the first half, I couldn’t find any throws that were wide open, with the possible exception of Smith-Njigba’s dig route with 7:51 in the second quarter. This would be understandable against any Big Ten opponent, but it was unusual against Akron to see this few receivers wide open.

There is an important caveat here: one game doesn’t tell us that much about his performance in practice over the last 10 months. Only having 18 throws, with about 5 of those being screens/pop-passes, leaves us with 13 passes to evaluate downfield. I evaluated passes also taken away by penalties and the screen pass thrown backwards. This isn’t an acceptable sample size, and I don’t think we know how good McCord really is. His performance in this game only lets me know that he isn’t guaranteed to be better than Stroud, and we have a data point to suggest that his bad performance is much worse than Stroud’s bad performance. That’s it. I still believe McCord has a bright future; the arm talent is undeniable, and the reported work ethic gets me excited. I know he can be a Heisman-caliber quarterback, and potentially a National Championship winner. I don’t think he is better than Stroud right now.

Jack Miller, on the other hand, played great. He looked like a really solid backup, maybe even starter quality, though the Akron caveat applies here. Miller’s first throw to Cade Stover running a seam was beautiful and perfectly read. He also had a perfect back shoulder throw to Scott on an off-sides penalty with 5:22 left in the third quarter.  I even thought his ball to Stover in the back of the endzone the very next play was an OK throw, given the level of difficulty. Miller didn’t throw any screens, and the play-calling was not as easy as the game plan that McCord was asked to execute. PFF seems to agree with me, as they gave him an 81.6, just a hair lower than Stroud at 81.9. While I don’t think he has the same upside as the other two, based on this game alone (which is admittedly worthless), he would be my choice to come in if Stroud were to get injured.

As for why the offense ran so well despite the uneven performance of McCord, the offensive line had its best game to date. Also, Akron.

The offensive line was dominant, with Johnson Jr. and Wypler having their best games as Buckeyes. Both of the Joneses and Petit-Frere continued their successes, but Johnson and Wypler broke out in a huge way. Contrary to previous weeks when they would struggle in pass protection; they looked competent in that phase of the game. They both looked dominant on the ground. When Paris Johnson Jr. and Luke Wypler are playing at this level, this offense is unstoppable. I don’t think it has performed poorly, but occasional mistakes from the right side of the line have hurt the offense by cutting down long drives. If those two can succeed at this level (or even lower), this offense is going to be the best in the country.

The big question is, what does the lineup look like moving forward with Harry Miller and Munford back? I think Munford needs to play due to his past success, but Matthew Jones has been elite. Dawand Jones has also stepped up outside. That leaves the two interior guys, Wypler and Johnson, who may be moved out for Harry Miller and Thayer Munford. I have no idea what they will do here. I think all seven of those guys have the potential or have shown to be outstanding offensive linemen in their careers. At this point, based on their performances this year, I might move Matt Jones to right guard, put Munford back in at left guard, and leave Wypler in, but it is hard to say. Miller may be a step up at center, as Wypler has struggled in pass protection. It is hard to take either of those guys out following this game, though.

The running backs were also top performers. Henderson is, by now, the unquestioned starter. His emergence in the Tulsa game was a clear sign. He looked excellent today as usual, and he made fewer mistakes. His run in 6:38 remaining in the first quarter showcased how special of an athlete he is, when he got the corner and used his speed to pick up 35.He looks like he’s getting better every week, and is already an elite running back. His touchdown run with 7:23 left in the second quarter was another one where he completely erased an angle from the safety to get an easy touchdown.

Teague looks like he is improving too. I normally don’t think there is much to learn from a game like this, but his run with 6:28 in the third quarter was a perfect example of his improvement. It was a counter play where he waited for his blocks to develop, continuing to work outside. He never received a great block, but showed patience until he could stiff arm the corner and get 10 yards. I hope to see more patience from him like that. He has ridiculous strength and speed, but his agility and acceleration sometimes prevents him from taking advantage his unique skill set, especially when they run Duo. If he can be a bit more patient and wait to hit the hole, he can potentially become a great running back in his own right, though this will be difficult to achieve. Right now, he is a perfectly acceptable changeup to Henderson. Based on his performance, I even think he might have jumped over Miyan Williams with his improvements in pass protection.

Williams looks good too. He is about the same size is Teague, but has a lot more agility and can accelerate pretty quickly. His top speed isn’t as good, but as a running back, it doesn’t need to be. I am assuming that the decrease in playing time is not football related. It isn’t really much of a concern. As long as Henderson is healthy, he is the best of the three, and deserves the lion’s share of the carries.

The receivers did fine as well. Here is the chart.

These are always tougher to comment on. It is still frustrating that Olave has gotten little action for the second week in a row, though I don’t expect this to continue. I already discussed a couple of JSN’s plays in the quarterback section, but that adjustment to the ball thrown too far inside on the touchdown was impressive. Similarly, Wilson’s spectacular catch on the incoming safety with the throw behind him was stunning. The starters are all elite.

Egbuka had a really nice catch and run, though he definitely did the true freshman thing of not having enough gas to make it for a touchdown. Dobbins used to do that all of the time back in 2017. It’s normal before you have years in the strength and conditioning program.

The tight ends played well too. Ruckert, in particular, had his best game blocking. As I have said many times this post, it was against Akron, but he and the rest of the offensive line did a nice job blocking. He didn’t get enough targets, which is a shame, but he did show off his versatility here.

Overall, it is hard to take too many positives away from the game because of the competition. However, the offense might genuinely be the best in the country this year, even if it hasn’t seemed like it. Offense is down across college football, regardless of conference. Some of this may be due to the new trends across defenses, like the 404 Tite formation that Iowa State helped popularize, which basically replaces a defensive end with a third safety. These formations have been run by Oregon, Tulsa, and Akron to some extent or another, with Tulsa using it the most. When Stroud was talking about how that defense gave them some problems, he was telling the truth. This has become the defense designed to stop the modern day spread attacks. While I haven’t seen the numbers after Akron, Ohio State was the #1 offense in the country according to SP+ after Tulsa, and they have looked excellent. The cohesion has been better than it looks, especially with Stroud. The offensive line is the key to making the offense go to a new level. While I thought they looked good against Akron, I want to see more success against Rutgers with their unusual defensive front.

I will try and have the defensive one out tomorrow. I will also try to do cumulative charts for the year after next week. Thank you for reading!