Ryan Day, for the first time that I can remember, revealed the criteria for who Ohio State declares as champions. He said that a player has to grade at least 80% with at least 15 snaps. With this in mind, I will be framing the grades that I give players in this same light, and declare my own champions for each of the games from now on. Additionally, I will compare them to who Ohio State declared as their own champions.

Last week, I talked a little about how Penn State’s defense would finally pose a challenge to Ohio State’s offense. I still expected Ohio State to be dominant, but less so. I also expected them to run all over Penn State, considering what Illinois did to them.

It is safe to say that was not the case.

Ohio State did not look great on offense for most of this game, particularly in the red zone. That was mainly due to the run-blocking issues that they had. Penn State almost always runs a 4-3, but they ran what looked like to me to be a 3-3-5 against Ohio State, while occasionaly showing a two or even sometimes one man front as well. Ohio State has had trouble blocking 3-man fronts this year, especially against Oregon, and somewhat against Tulsa. Both of those schools used a more traditional 3-man front. They typically ran either a Base front (with a 0-technique nose guard and two 6-technique defensive ends) or a Tite front (with a 0-technique nose guard and two 4-technique defensive ends. Penn State, instead, had an Over “load” front with their defensive linemen. This involved have a 1-tech on the weak side, a 3-tech on the strong side, and a 5-tech on the strong side as well. This was a front that Ohio State had not seen this year, especially from Penn State.

Rarely do teams switch up their base defense look for one game, though it still happens on occasion. The most memorable for Ohio State fans was the 2014 Virginia Tech game where they had a Bear front. Illinois could run because they ran most plays with 7 offensive linemen and two tight ends. Ohio State wasn’t nearly as committed to the run.

Here’s how the offense graded out:

There wasn’t much to talk about regarding champions this week. The two players on offense that earned a champion grade from me was Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Garrett Wilson. Day named Smith-Njigba a champion, but not Wilson. I thought both of these guys made some nice plays, and Smith-Njigba in particular had that huge catch and run that gave the offense some much needed life when the game was tied 17-17. Wilson had a great route against Porter that caused a defensive holding penalty, and was pretty involved with the gameplan the entire way. The coaches have access to the All-22 footage, which I do not have, so they can see quite a bit more. Also, they are grading every play for every player, which I am not doing, so they have more data. Having said that, I basically completely agree with their assessment for the offense as a whole. There wasn’t a lot to celebrate.

I mentioned it above, but the run-blocking was really bad. These are the worst grades I have ever given to the offensive line. Petit-Frere in particular had a bad game. He’s been the offensive lineman I have liked the most this year, but he really struggled in this one. Having said that, I have a heuristic for who I place as the likely reason for a failure in any team/organizational setting.

Everyone is responsible for what they are overseeing. Players worry about their own performance, position coaches are responsible for the performance of their position, coordinators are responsible for their sides of the ball, and the head coach is responsible for wins. In this case, the team won, the offense played pretty well (not by their standards, but by the standards of an average college football team), most of the positions played fine, but the entirety of the offensive line played poorly. This leads me to believe that Coach Studrawa had not properly prepared his players for this.

As I pointed out before the grades were handed out, the lack of preparation is fairly understandable. Penn State pulled this out after not showing it all year. I don’t blame him at all for not having his group ready for this game, as it was an aberration on their performance over the year. It tripped up the 2014 team that won a national championship. This wasn’t the end of the world.

Still, the offensive line’s performance is something that needs to be addressed. This is the third time this year the offense has had somewhat of an issue against an odd front, with the other two games being Oregon and Tulsa. If this doesn’t get fixed, Ohio State will continue to struggle against a few teams still on the schedule.

The other big reason that the offense wasn’t doing well was the performance of Treveyon Henderson. While I think he is certainly the best running back on Ohio State, for the third time this season I have noticed that he sometimes gets impatient and runs into the back of his linemen instead of waiting for a play to develop. On the last run of the game for Ohio State on a 3rd and 1, the offensive linemen succeed in creating a hole to the left side of Wypler. If he hits that hole, he gets the first down, and maybe even a touchdown. Instead, he runs right into the back of his offensive line, and the Buckeyes settle for a field goal. Even on the play before, Henderson gets good yardage, but if he continues to head toward the sideline (which Garrett Wilson is expecting based on his blocking), he likely scores. At the very least, he would have gotten the first down, and Ohio State would be 1st and Goal. Instead, the Buckeyes get stuffed. Henderson still played well – his two explosive runs were integral to the victory. Still, he can improve his vision and patience, which is certainly possible. Master Teague III has gotten better throughout his career. Derrick Henry went from being a very good short yardage, high-usage back at Alabama to becoming the best running back in the world almost exclusively by improving his vision and patience. It is definitely possible, but it might not bear fruit this year. This is fine, since he’s only a freshman.

There was a lot of talk after the game about the play-calling, which I thought was pretty bad while watching the game. After re-watching it, I have a completely different opinion. It wasn’t as bad as expected. All of your offensive calls look bad when the offensive line is playing this poorly. The only thing that I thought was a bit unusual was the abandonment of split flow. That play has been their counter to split zone the whole season. In this game, they ran a lot of split zone, but not much split flow, which was unusual.

I think Day went to runs on third and short/fourth and short for a couple of different reasons. First, I think he wanted to set up short yardage tendencies for his team. In every big game I have seen from him, he is really good at breaking tendencies and taking chances. To break tendencies, tendencies have to be established. Thus, he was committed to running in short yardage.

Also, I think Day wanted the offensive line to work through their struggles instead of attempting to mask the problems they were having. The best way to get better is through reps, and game reps are the best opportunity for improvement. If he just tried to cover up the line’s struggles against this particular front, they may have scored more against Penn State, but the offensive line would be much less well equipped to deal with it against a much better team. I think it was a deliberate decision to run the ball. This makes more sense too considering Ohio State had a 92% win expectancy. This game wasn’t as close as the score indicated. It would make sense that Day would be comfortable working on some things when given the opportunity.

Day could have thrown the ball deep a little more often; this was a game where Olave in particular could have really shined. Penn State was stacking the box and leaving only one deep safety. Olave got nine targets, which is plenty, especially if most of those were incomplete. Penn State deserves some credit. They are one of the best pass defenses in the country, and it showed.

Even with Olave not getting the kind of numbers he might expect, Stroud played pretty well:

Stroud was very good, and nearly graded out as a champion for me. First, to address some of the concerns for fans about Stroud not keeping on the runs: Ohio State does not call zone reads nearly ever. When they do, Stroud makes the right decision, but almost every team stays outside to defend against the QB keeper. In this game, they actually called three zone reads, all of which were correctly read as handoffs. They were also some of Ohio State’s best runs of the day, with Henderson’s 22-yard run in the fourth quarter being a zone read. Even though they even up numbers in the box, which was extremely helpful in this game, I do think Day wants to run these sparingly, as Fields’ injury against Penn State in 2019 potentially cost them a national championship, and his injury against Clemson in 2020 cost them at least competing in the game against Alabama. There are other ways to take out defenders, especially with play-action and screen relief RPOs.

Besides that, Stroud was solid. He did miss the throw to Olave on fourth down, and he did start off a little slow, but after the first drive or two he was great. The throw to Ruckert in the fourth was huge, and the touchdown pass to Olave was done perfectly. He also is excellent against the blitz; Penn State tried to blitz him a couple of times and he just ripped them to shreds every time they did. His pocket presence is much better than Haskins or Fields at the same stage of their careers. I was worried that they would bait him into interceptions with how good their pass defense has been, but he didn’t throw anything remotely close to an interception the entire game. I am officially completely confident in his ability moving forward.

The receivers were fine too:

Ruckert had another good game receiving, though not blocking. His catch in the fourth was one of the biggest plays in the game. He made a couple of difficult catches throughout the game. I already talked about Smith-Njigba and Wilson, who were the only two players who graded above an 80% for me on offense. Olave probably should have had a bigger game, but his day looks a lot different if Stroud hits him on the fourth down.

Here are a few of the big takeaways I have from this game:

What should we worry about? The offensive lines performance against 3-man defensive lines may prove this team’s downfall. They’ve been great this year for the most part, but 3-man fronts have given them trouble this year. The game against Michigan, and potential games against Alabama or Georgia could completely derail Ohio State’s offense due to their defensive alignments. This needs to be fixed immediately if Ohio State wants to compete for a championship this year.

What should we not worry about? The running backs and the wide receivers are still excellent. They played as well as could be expected in this game. The wide receivers played especially well considering the competition. I also don’t think we need to worry about play-calling or the offense as a whole. Day saves his best gameplans for the best teams, and I expect him to do so again this year. This offense is still the best in the country, especially through the air.

What should we get excited about? CJ Stroud defying all constraints for what a quarterback is supposed to be able to do in his first year as a starter. He gets big plays, never takes sacks, and (shockingly) limits turnovers. I expected a game where he had a couple turnovers against Penn State. I guess not.

Archive

Offense vs. Oregon / Defense vs. Oregon

Offense vs. Tulsa / Defense vs. Tulsa

Offense vs. Akron / Defense vs. Akron

Offense vs. Rutgers / Defense vs. Rutgers

Offense vs. Maryland / Defense vs. Maryland

Mid-Season Review

Offense vs. Indiana / Defense vs. Indiana

This series is based off of Upon Further Review from MgoBlog. If you want to read their latest entry against Michigan State, it is located here.