So, good news. Over 2000 yards of rushing is coming back to the Ohio State offense in 2018. J.K. Dobbins and Mike Weber both averaged over six yards of rushing (and in the case of Dobbins, a lot more than that) in 2017, and while Dobbins got the lion's share of the carries, Weber contributed more than his share to the overall success of a rushing attack that racked up over 243 yards a game.
That's a paragraph that when people read, they go YEAH LET'S GO, THUNDER AND LIGHTNING, PEW PEW PEW and dream of pulling guards and toss sweeps and whatever else looks super badass when a big dude is streaking down the sidelines for a 54 yard gain. And by "people," I mean me, because more than anyone I desperately want to worship at the feet of a two-headed running game, and believe that it's the best way for Ohio State to roll to greatness in 2018.
I'll get to the latter point a little bit later, but before we do that, let me devote a few sentences to the myriad ways that my faith has been ignored throughout the years.
"Thunder and Lightning" is a lie. Well, like 70% of the time anyway.
Okay, so here's a really obvious statement that you're already aware of: Ohio State really has had an embarrassment of riches at the running back position during the Urban Meyer era.
That's not really unique in Ohio State football history. It's a program that mythologizes Three Yards And A Cloud Of Dust and Eddie and Byars and Archie and so on. Especially in recent history, Ohio State has almost always had significant talent ready to go at the beginning of the season, with Option B waiting in the wings.
The logical conclusion for a running-game embracing fanbase, then, is that Running Back A (aka "Thunder," because he's slightly fatter and slower than the other guy) and Running Back B (aka "Lightning," because he's slightly smaller and faster than the other guy) should just run the ball a combined 60 times a game for 400 yards and 10 touchdowns and then they ascend into heaven on the angelic wings made of pigskin.
The desire for this beautiful lie is so strong that as a freshman at Ohio State in 2003, I thought that the unstoppable duo of Lydell Ross and Maurice Hall could pull the Buckeyes to a repeat national championship, even with the loss of Maurice Clarett. That didn't work out so well, given that neither of them averaged over 4.5 yards per carry that season.
Also interesting about that 2003 campaign is this: of the 489 times that an Ohio State player ran the ball that season, Ross got 193 carries and Hall got 97, good for, uh... third, as Craig Krenzel ended up with 109 carries for 2.3 yards per carry. Which (even after considering sacks) sucks, but should seem awfully familiar, sans suckiness at running the ball.
Because here's the rub. It's not just under Urban Meyer. Over the past few decades, Ohio State has consistently leaned heavily on the quarterback position to supplement the rushing game. Only twice since that 2003 season has an Ohio State quarterback not been one of the top two rushers by volume on the Buckeyes. Players like Terrelle Pryor, Troy Smith, Braxton Miller, and J.T. Barrett have all been an essential part of moving the ball on the ground.
Which is fine! Braxton single-handedly killed the "Urban has never had a 1000 yard rusher" meme and blew our minds by being a wizard on roller skates, Barrett was the fastest slow man in history, Pryor was really the only functional part of the offenses that he helmed for long stretches of his career, and though Troy Smith eventually won a Heisman on the strength of his passing, it was his legs that helped the 2004 team to a winning record after a dismal start to the season.
But that also means that this whole "Thunder and Lightning" thing has been not a whole lot more than a fantasy for a long time.
But maybe fantasy can become reality.
Something has changed. Maybe. Actually, it's probably more accurate to say that something could change even more than it already has, if Urban Meyer and Kevin Wilson and Ryan Day have the will to do it. Take a look at this graph:
There isn't a huge difference here, but what it shows is that despite our occasional grousing over the amount of carries that Ohio State quarterbacks are asked to take on, the proportion of the rushing offense that they're being asked to shoulder has gone down somewhat over Urban Meyer's tenure.
A lot of that is due to the personnel available. Braxton Miller had to run as much as possible because he was one of the most dynamic football players in Buckeye history. In 2014 and 2015, a guy named Ezekiel Elliot made the decision about who to give the ball to on running downs a whole lot easier to make.
Which brings us to 2018.
If you've sensed a theme here, it's that ultimately (unless the available running backs are kind of garbage), if you're looking for a fun 1-2 punch at running back, the position to really look at isn't tailback, it's quarterback. For almost two decades now, the athlete at that position has decided what the running game is going to look like, and this season will be no different.
If you're hoping for Thunder and Lightning, the choice is pretty clear: you want Dwayne Haskins to be the starting quarterback for the Ohio State Buckeyes in 2018. It's pretty unlikely that Ohio State would abandon the running element of the quarterback completely with Haskins at the helm, but the doling out of rushing attempts would probably look something like it did in 2006, when Antonio Pittman and Beanie Wells took over and Troy Smith only had 15% of the total carries for the season. If Joe Burrow gets the job, he and the coaches are much more likely to rely on his feet if the passing game isn't working, which is less than ideal.
Why? Well, the pretty simple answer is that an offense that begins with the running back tandem of J.K. Dobbins and Mike Weber gives Ohio State the best chance to win. If you're ranking the best offensive skill players, they're probably numbers 1 and 2, which means that they should get the ball as often as possible.
But really, I can't deny that a big part of me is stuck back in 2003, with the same thought racing through my head: it'd be fun as hell to watch. And that's reason enough.
