Run the football. Stop the run.
Those are the two things almost every single football coach in the country would say are essential to winning games. If a team can’t run the ball, its likelihood of victory decreases significantly. If a team can’t stop the run, well, good luck.
Ohio State coach Urban Meyer said this week his No. 1 concern going into Saturday’s showdown at Oklahoma is his team’s ability to run the football against the Sooners’ stout front. And for the Buckeyes’ defense, a big point of emphasis this week — in addition to containing Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield — is slowing down the dynamic 1-2 punch that is Joe Mixon and Samaje Perine out of the Sooners’ backfield.
“You can’t miss a tackle,” Ohio State middle linebacker Raekwon McMillan said. “It comes down to the fundamentals. Taking on blocks, getting off blocks, changing the math, somebody getting off a block and making a play.”
“If you’re in the open field with a good player like Mixon or Perine or Baker Mayfield, you’ve just got to make a tackle.”
Easier said than done, of course, as Oklahoma can hit a team out of the backfield in many different ways.
Listed at 5-foot-10 and 235 pounds, Perine is a powerful, battering-ram type runner who is certainly quicker than he appears. He carried the ball just 16 times in the first two games this season and gained 89 yards with a pair of touchdowns, but Perine could become Oklahoma’s all-time leading rusher with a 1,000-plus yard campaign in 2016. He’s only a junior, too, so he could come back for another year and add to that career total, which currently sits at 3,151 career yards.
For a change of pace, the Sooners will bring in Mixon, and the redshirt sophomore is quite effective in that role. Mixon actually has more carries than Perine through two games with 20, and he has gained 157 yards on the ground with one rushing touchdown. Mixon is also explosive in the passing game, which was shown in the very first quarter of Oklahoma’s Week 1 matchup with Houston when he hauled in a 60-yard pass from Mayfield in the first quarter.
Then, of course, there’s Mayfield, who does most of his damage on the ground when a pass play breaks down and he can extend the play.
“We have to stop the run before we even have an opportunity to attack the quarterback,” Buckeyes defensive end Sam Hubbard said. “We have to focus on stopping the run and making them throw the ball. Once they have to throw the ball then we’ll get after [Mayfield].”
On the flip side, Ohio State is certainly going to try and run the ball itself though Meyer knows it will be a challenge. And even though Houston managed to put up 33 points and racked up 410 total yards against the Sooners, the Buckeyes’ head coach was quick to point out most of that came through big plays in the passing game as the Cougars struggled to run the football.
"The thing it just proves is how hard it is to run the ball against them. Houston didn't run the ball very good," Meyer said. "They had some great back shoulder throws, some great throws and big plays when they needed it."
Mike Weber, Curtis Samuel and J.T. Barrett will be tasked with the challenge of running behind an inexperienced offensive line. All three have flashed during Ohio State’s first two games of the season.
Samuel has been the Buckeyes’ most dynamic player as he ranks third in FBS with 401 yards from scrimmage. He has racked up 162 of those yards on the ground on just 21 carries, which is good for an average of 7.7 yards per carry.
Weber is the team’s leading rusher through two games with 228 on 36 carries (6.3 yards per rush). The redshirt freshman out of Detroit scored his first-career touchdown in last weekend’s 48-3 rout of Tulsa.
Barrett was rarely used in the run game during Ohio State’s season-opener against Bowling Green as he carried the ball just six times. But in the Buckeyes’ victory against the Golden Hurricane, the redshirt junior signal-caller had 16 carries — a number closer to the norm for Barrett — for 55 yards and a pair of scores.
“They’ve got good guys, but with that, I’m confident with our O-line and to say that we’re not going to run the ball, that’s not real,” Barrett said. “That’s what we do so I’m not saying that worries me at all, we’ve just got to make sure we’re on point with our run game.”
Run the ball. Stop the run.
That’s what it’s going to come down to Saturday night, as it usually does in the game of football. Both teams will surely try to be balanced — Meyer said Ohio State has "no chance" to win if it's not — but you can bet both will try to establish the ground game early in hopes to wear down the opposition.
“They’re a really good team we’re playing,” Meyer said. “This is going to be one of those prize fights that’s going to be a tough one.”
