It’s no secret Ohio State’s offense is loaded with talent entering the 2020 season.
Starting quarterback Justin Fields leads the way as the reigning Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year and one of college football’s biggest superstars. Wyatt Davis, Josh Myers and Thayer Munford lead an offensive line that should be one of the best in the country.
Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson could be one of the best receiving tandems in the nation, and they’re joined by a bevy of young receivers like Jameson Williams, Julian Fleming, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Gee Scott Jr. and Mookie Cooper who also have star potential. Luke Farrell, Jeremy Ruckert and Jake Hausmann give the Buckeyes a trio of experienced tight ends, and while J.K. Dobbins leaves big shoes to fill at running back, Trey Sermon and Master Teague are expected to form a strong one-two punch in his stead.
With all that talent to work with, the biggest challenge for Ohio State’s offensive coaches could be finding a way to get all those players on the field, which has offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson wishing the Buckeyes could play a game under the rules of the Canadian Football League, where teams are allowed to have 12 players on the field instead of 11.
“As a tight end coach, I like those tight ends playing, and I don’t like when those fast guys come off,” Wilson said. “So maybe if we can sneak in a Canadian game and get 12 guys, we’d be okay too, because we could probably play that way.”
Unfortunately for Wilson and the Buckeyes, putting 12 offensive players on the field at once isn’t going to be an option. Outside of that, however, Ohio State appears to have the variety and depth of playmakers to do just about anything it wants on offense.
If the Buckeyes want to put multiple tight ends on the field, as they did with some regularity last year, they still have the manpower to do that. Head coach and primary offensive play caller Ryan Day said on his Thursday radio show that the Buckeyes could also have packages that put two running backs on the field together (though Ohio State has hinted at that possibility in recent years, too, without actually doing it).
Yet with all the talent the Buckeyes have at wideout, they’re going to want to be in their primary offense with three receivers on the field in most situations. So while Wilson believes his tight end unit has “a chance to be the best we’ve had since I’ve been here,” and there’s plenty of optimism that Sermon, Teague and the rest of Ohio State’s running backs can be weapons out of the backfield, the coaches don’t want to overdo it with trying to incorporate too many different packages into their offense.
“The way Jameson’s come on and some of the young freshmen like Jaxon and Julian and Gee and those guys, we’re taking out a really good player (when Ohio State doesn’t have three receivers on the field),” Wilson said Friday. “So I think it just gets in the flow of the game. I think these tight ends can flex out if we need to ... I don’t think we need to force it. I think we just get into the flow of the game, and as Coach Day’s calling it, we get going, we can always go to it. We can flex them out, we can go big and then we put these receivers out there, it’s about as collectively fast and athletic a group of receivers as I’ve been around.”
Because Ohio State’s season is starting nearly two months later than usual, after an offseason in which coaches were at home far more than usual due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Wilson and the rest of the Buckeyes’ offensive coaches – Day, Brian Hartline, Corey Dennis, Tony Alford and Greg Studrawa – have had no shortage of time to think creatively and come up with new ideas for plays and packages they could add to the offense this year.
With that comes a risk of overcomplicating things, though, especially after an offseason in which coaches were away from their players more than usual. So Wilson says they need to be careful about not trying to do too much schematically when their talent should enable them to be successful with simplicity.
“That’s one of the things of the pandemic, you got a lot of time to sit around, maybe think too much and start out-thinking yourself,” Wilson said. “And so we gotta find a way to keep it where these talented group of guys can cut it loose and fly around and do a great job for Buckeye Nation.”
Because the Buckeyes are loaded with offensive skill-position players who have tremendous talent and reason to believe the ball should be in their hands, they face the potential challenge of being unable to keep everyone happy with their roles, but Wilson says they can’t worry too much about that. And he and his fellow coaches are trying to sell their players on staying focused on their collective goals as a team.
“If we can play as a group, collectively you can always get more than you will individually,” Wilson said. “Now that’s hard. It’s easier said than done, especially this day and age, with all the dynamics and social media and players getting pulled with families and friends and ‘Give me my touches.’ But if we can keep our egos in check, continue to buy into the brotherhood of what we’ve got, I think we’ve got a chance to be another very, very, very strong football team.”
Jeremy Ruckert is one of at least three tight ends who will be vying for touches with a loaded group of wide receivers and multiple running backs. (Photo: Ohio State Dept. of Athletics)
If there’s anyone who would have reason to be upset about a lack of touches, it might be tight ends like Farrell, Ruckert and Hausmann, who collectively caught just 23 passes last season in an offense that has become notorious for seldomly throwing the ball to its tight ends. Yet they seemed to be as bought into Wilson’s notion as anyone during their media interviews on Friday.
“I think we can, as an offense, be one of the most prolific offenses we’ve had around here, if not in all of college football,” Farrell said. “So we have high expectations for the offense for the team, and then I just know with those expectations, my individual stuff will come. I don’t have to really necessarily worry about that. If we’re successful as an offense, I’ll be successful as an individual.”
Hausmann, a fifth-year senior who said he’s happy he’s stuck around at Ohio State even though he hasn’t started a game for the Buckeyes and still isn’t in line to be a starter, said he believes this year’s offense could be the best the Buckeyes have had since he’s been in Columbus if everyone stays focused on their collective objectives.
“We have all the weapons we need to be putting up crazy numbers and winning games by as much as we want to,” Hausmann said. “We have all the receivers, we have all the tight ends, we have the running backs, the quarterbacks, O-line, we have everyone on offense to do it. And it’s just not the talent, it’s the character of all these guys. You just see the guys that opted out at the beginning and came back, it’s a brotherhood, and everyone wants to be at the top of their game, and it’s been awesome to see everyone kind of come together.”
