When Ohio State hits the recruiting trail, its objective is to find the best possible athletes possible and get them to Columbus. With a national brand and powerhouse coaching staff headed by someone like Urban Meyer, you already knew that.
But Ohio State's passing game missed something in 2015. A quarterback shuffle, new play calling personnel and lack of true receivers resulted in a passing yards per game average of 188.8 — 100th in the country.
That is a far cry from the lightning that struck between Cardale Jones, Devin Smith, Michael Thomas, Jalin Marshall and others when the Buckeyes tore through the 2014 postseason on their way to winning the first-ever College Football Playoff National Championship. In 2015, Jones lost his mojo and eventually his job to J.T. Barrett, Smith played for the New York Jets and Marshall was one of a few players that were not a "true wide receiver."
Thomas — a 6-foot-3, 215-pound specimen with an absurd catch radius — led the team 781 yards and nine touchdowns. He only played wide receiver, though — Marshall, Braxton Miller, Curtis Samuel and Dontre Wilson lined up anyway from the slot, to the outside or in the backfield.
The Buckeyes hope another year of development at the position for those returning players in addition to added depth in the form of players returning from injuries results in a much more efficient output this fall.
"The passing game is based on spacing and timing," Tim Beck said in April. "If you have guys who aren't sure or they're not the right depth or the quarterback has to move around a little bit, sometimes that creates timing issues. Maybe there was some of that last year."
Brown's injury forced Marshall to play outside more in 2015.
At times, the offense felt disjointed in 2015. OK, fine — anything that didn't involve handing the ball to Ezekiel Elliott felt disjointed until late in the season when Ohio State ran over Michigan and Notre Dame to finish a season that was meant for much more at 12-1 and with nothing more than a co-division championship to show for it.
Miller's position switch put the staff in a bind. The need to involve a player with that type of athleticism and historical imprint on your program is a necessity, regardless if he is in a new role. Marshall, who played quarterback in high school, is not blessed with the same big-bodied frame as Thomas. Samuel and Wilson are shifty guys who play best in space.
It's the staff's job to tailor the offense to the players it has to work with. In 2015, however, the guys the offense depended on failed to get the job done with consistency on the outside. As a result, the passing game struggled.
Zach Smith, though, does not buy into the idea that too many small speedy guys prevented the passing offense from hitting its full potential last season.
"I don't think it did. You kind of had unfortunate situations with two pseudo-starters outside in Corey Smith and Noah (Brown) that broke their leg," Smith said. "That's two guys you were really counting on to be starters or really play a significant role, then a guy like Parris Campbell gets hurt. He starts against Virginia Tech, plays a decent game, he's a freshman, you're expecting him to grow into what you want out there and he got hurt and didn't have the opportunity to do that.
"With the exception of Braxton there was always some inclination that they probably were or might end up being receivers," Smith continued. "We've done that for 10 years since I've been coaching receivers, to project those high school quarterback/athletes, or maybe a running back that's too small to play running back, so that's not uncommon, but we happen to have more of them than normal, but I don't know that affected anything in a positive or negative way."
“You could wear guys out, the tempo of the offense, throwing the ball and the length of the season anymore if you don't have any depth. It was a great learning experience for the young players to almost go back to ground zero and start over.”– Tim Beck
Injuries made life difficult for Ohio State's wide receivers coach in 2015. The absences of Corey Smith and Brown hurt the group as a whole, just as it did this spring. Wilson and Samuel also weren't full-go in in March and April while they rehabbed foot injuries. Still, Meyer and Beck saw the improvement they wanted to see in the passing game.
True freshman Austin Mack enrolled in January and Binjimen Victor arrived from Florida this weekend. Both have played purely receiver their whole careers. The others are expected to be healthy. So even without Marshall, Miller, and Thomas the group has plenty of positive thoughts for its outlook this fall.
"I think the biggest thing was we created depth at the receiver position. I was really pleased with the way those guys played and got better through the course of the spring," Beck said. "You could wear guys out, the tempo of the offense, throwing the ball and the length of the season anymore if you don't have any depth. It was a great learning experience for the young players to almost go back to ground zero and start over."
The list of names available for quarterback J.T. Barrett to throw to is extensive. K.J. Hill, Alex Stump, Torrance Gibson, Terry McLaurin and James Clark join the fold with Brown, Corey Smith and the others already mentioned.
All that depth has to help this fall, right?
"I think it really helped our quarterbacks, I think it really helped our receivers have a better understanding of where everyone needs to be when they need to be there and why they need to be there," Beck said.
Zach Smith added: "It was their time (this spring) Terry, Parris and James Clark, it was kind of like, 'all right, it's your turn to kind of run the show,' and they really did. Fifteen practices and didn't miss a rep, went really hard, executed at a really high level."
