As Taylor Decker strolled over to his table inside the Woody Hayes Athletic Center on Monday afternoon, Ohio State’s mammoth left tackle had a somewhat stern look at his face, almost as if he was fully expecting to answer multiple questions pertaining to his position group and its lackluster performance Saturday against Hawai’i.
The Buckeyes won the game handedly — it was a 38-0 final — but up front there were multiple breakdowns in both the running and passing game as Ohio State allowed a pair of sacks and running back Ezekiel Elliott averaged just 3.7 yards per carry as he was hit in the backfield on a number of occasions.
“Obviously we didn’t execute to the level of our expectations,” Decker said. “There’s all the excuses there that you can use, but we’re not gonna use those. … We’ve just gotta get better. That’s all it is, we’ve just gotta get better.”
Decker was referring to Ohio State’s quick turnaround as it played its season-opener Monday night at Virginia Tech, then had to come back just five days later and play another game against the Rainbow Warriors.
“Our success over the last three years and two games is because of our offensive line, and with that comes a lot of responsibility. We expect them to play much better.”– Urban Meyer
The Buckeyes also spent an inordinate amount of time preparing for that first game and the Hokies’ Bear defense and Hawai’i runs a 3-4 scheme, which is a much different look. Yet, Ohio State’s performance against the Rainbow Warriors should have been much better.
“The biggest concern is the offensive line gets a lot of credit around here. We are an offensive line drive, absolutely an offensive line driven program,” head coach Urban Meyer said. “Our success over the last three years and two games is because of our offensive line, and with that comes a lot of responsibility. We expect them to play much better.”
A year ago, the Buckeyes’ five guys up front were considered a major question mark heading into the season. And at the beginning of the year, the unit looked like it could be a work in progress for the duration of the season. But as the year progressed and Ohio State went on that unprecedented run to the national title, the Buckeyes’ offensive line was one of the best in all of college football.
It’s a group that’s not playing at that level yet, but it is still just two weeks into this season. Decker said he felt Ohio State’s offensive line played better against Virginia Tech than it did against Hawai’i, but that there’s still plenty of room for improvement.
The good news for the Buckeyes is there’s plenty of time to figure things out. And that all starts Saturday when Ohio State welcomes one of the top teams in the Mid-American Conference to Ohio Stadium when it hosts Northern Illinois.
“You’ve gotta improve and I think we’re in a good situation where we’re kind of unhappy with how we played even though we did win 38-0,” Decker said. “There are areas to improve, but at the end of the day we did get the win and we’ll just have to improve this next week.”
