In what was one of the biggest offensive outpourings in school history, Ohio State dropped 710 yards and 45 first downs on 101 plays in a vanquishing of in-state foe Cincinnati Saturday night.
But when the Buckeyes gathered in their locker room following the 50-28 win, head coach Urban Meyer thought they could’ve done more.
“We did a lot of good things on offense and we know what we can do even better than that,” senior right tackle Darryl Baldwin said Monday.
“Coach Meyer was asking, ‘We got 700 yards, why didn’t we get 800?’ There’s always something we can work on and get better at.”
Sure, but Ohio State was nearly flawless in the way it systematically dismantled the Bearcats and a bad defense. 800 yards is the stuff of fairy tales. That’s ridiculous. Right?
“We have had great offenses — like great offenses,” Meyer said. “I consider this potentially a really good one. Maybe a great one.
“But this is the first time I feel very comfortable with the tempo.”
Therein lies the reason why Meyer thinks Buckeyes — even without star quarterback Braxton Miller and a handful of unproven commodities — can operate at a high level.
“That's not something (we did at) Florida, Utah, Bowling Green,” he said. “We never ran tempo offenses.”
And for perhaps the first time, Ohio State — which boasted one of the nation’s best units last season behind a powerful running game — was the up-tempo team it’s long wanted to be with offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Tom Herman at the controls.
“That's a big part of why he was hired,” Meyer said. “I wanted to do it.”
Coupled with a group of burgeoning skill players who gashed and gutted Cincinnati’s porous defense, it made a miserable display in a demoralizing loss to Virginia Tech a few weeks earlier seem ancient.
“I was really excited to get our skill going, and we didn't do a good job really early in the year,” Meyer said, wishing he could have the game against the Hokies "over again."
Time and an absurd amount of repetitions, though, have healed some of those wounds.
“It is a street fight to get the ball right now … the thing I really appreciate watching is when you can start platooning guys as they're going in," Meyer said. "I don't know if you notice that during the course of the game.”
Depth at the skill positions make that possible, Meyer said.
“You're running new tailbacks and who’s better? Our first (string) or our third? They're pretty good. And the same thing — we have two sets of receivers who can go in. Now we have two tight ends with a very capable third. So we're recruiting some depth.”
It's the lifeblood of the up-tempo offense.
“You start talking tempo, you wear out the defense. Unfortunately wear out the offense, too, if you don't have that depth,” Meyer said.
“There's been times in the past when we want to run very up-tempo and it looks awful because everyone's blown out. I don't feel that now that way at all and more importantly our offensive coordinator, he's a big tempo guy. I'm the one putting the brakes on. I'm the one on the field seeing the fatigue. As long as I know we're rotating players, on the headsets it's go, go, go.”
Part of Ohio State’s offensive success, of course, was thanks to its opponent’s horrid defense.
So maybe Meyer’s discontent with one of the most-explosive days in school history was spot on. Maybe the Buckeyes should've had 800 yards. Or maybe it’s another tactic to sustain a snowball of momentum for an offense that looked lifeless earlier this month.
