Game Three of Ohio State's 2020 season comes tomorrow night as the Buckeyes play host to upstart Rutgers at 7:30 p.m. in the Shoe.
Rutgers might be on better footing that its been in quite some time now that Greg Schiano is back in charge and the roster has received a bit of a talent upgrade via the transfer market.
The Scarlet Knights are still in for a beating but in a shortened season with no guarantees, blowouts don't register on the boring scale like in previous years.
To assist in your preparation for the prime time event, please welcome 11W staffers Colin Hass-Hill, Zack Carpenter and Matt Gutridge to this week's roundtable.
Penn State had a lot of success throwing the ball in the second half, even on Shaun Wade, and now we've learned Cameron Brown is lost for the season due to an Achilles injury. How worried should Buckeye fans be about the secondary?
Colin: Don’t panic...yet.
The Buckeyes should be able to get by with what they have. Shaun Wade and Sevyn Banks can man the outside cornerback spots, Marcus Williamson lines up in the slot, Marcus Hooker starts at the single deep free safety and Josh Proctor joins him at safety while moving around to serve as a slot cornerback/linebacker/Bullet/whatever you want to call him. With those five guys, Ohio State should be able to mask the loss of Cameron Brown, who took most of his snaps in the slot on third downs and as a backup on the outside.
The issue: What happens if literally any of those five players get injured or test positive for COVID-19? That’s what’s most concerning.
Depth is more important than ever before in this godforsaken year of 2020, and the Buckeyes simply don’t have much of it in their defensive backfield. Their backup cornerbacks now consist of Tyreke Johnson, who didn’t play a single snap last weekend, and a bunch of freshmen who are all unproven. Not great.
Zack: Depends on how you feel about Marcus Williamson, whether or not you’ve given up hope yet on Tyreke Johnson or if you believe the coaches’ belief in Ryan Watts as a huge difference-maker or if Lathan Ransom will be able to effectively cover slot receivers in his freshman year if called upon. (I don’t think he can.)
I already thought the secondary was going to be the downfall of Ohio State’s defense and would be one of the biggest reasons the Buckeyes lose in the national title game against Clemson. Then again, whether against Alabama or Clemson, it’s probably going to be a shootout either way, and the Buckeyes’ offense will have to carry the day. And, after all, that’s the lens every regular-season game should be looked through anyway – is (fill in the blank on a position group) good enough to beat Clemson and Alabama?
I think Ohio State fans shouldn’t be worried at all until the playoffs. Buckeye fans just need to hope they can cash all of the stock they bought in Sevyn Banks by season’s end. Eventually, I think Shaun Wade grows into his role as a first-year outside cornerback at this level and Banks will show solid improvement by the time late December and early January rolls around. But I always thought they were vulnerable at nickel cornerback even with Cam Brown in there, and without him, I think that matchup gets exploited even further once the Buckeyes match up with Amari Rodgers – not to look too far ahead but, ya know, I’m gonna look far ahead.
Matt: Fans shouldn't panic until it's time to panic. The secondary is dangerously thin and is an injury, ejection or COVID situation away from becoming decimated. Imagine the precarious position the defense would be in right now if Shaun Wade decided not to come back for this season.
The current situation in the secondary reminds me of the "Don't Panic" scene from the award winning, critically acclaimed film Airplane 2: The Sequel. Yes, Chris, I think it's reasonable to be very concerned about the secondary going forward.
Through two games, which position group has exceeded your own preseason expectations by the widest margin? Which group has done the opposite?
Matt: The receivers have exceeded my lofty expectations. Coming into the season, I thought Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson (Garrett the Great), were going to be very productive. What have they accomplished in two games? Oh yeah, they have become the first receiving duo in Ohio State history to each eclipse 100 yards receiving in back-to-back games.
It's not just Olave and Wilson making noise. Jameson Williams is quietly causing stress on opposing defenses while Jaxon Smith-Njigba appears to be the next star at the wide-out position. Add in the sudden emergence of the tight ends and the Buckeye passing game is performing at an extremely high level. Of course, Justin Fields might be part of the success as well.
For some reason, I had high expectations for Trey Sermon. To date, he has 111 yards on 24 carries. Don't get me wrong, 4.6 yards per carry isn't bad, but I was expecting a back similar to JK Dobbins and Ezekiel Elliott. I now realize that was way too high of a bar. Sermon looks more like Derek Combs 2.0, without Combs' speed.
Colin: Defensive tackle. We knew Tommy Togiai could be something special. Outside of him, nobody knew quite what to expect, especially when Haskell Garrett got shot in the face and Taron Vincent wasn’t ready for the start of the season.
Well, as it turns out, Togiai was even better than most people anticipated and Garrett made a miraculous recovery to turn into somebody who’s consistently getting penetration up the middle from his 3-technique spot. They thoroughly dominated Penn State and completely changed the game.
I’m not sure there’s a great answer about who has fallen short of my expectations at this point. Cornerback probably has to be the answer, though we’re talking about a potential first-round pick (Shaun Wade) and two first-time starters who were bound to go through some rough patches (Sevyn Banks and Marcus Williamson).
Zack: It’s gotta be defensive tackle, right? I mean, I thought Tommy Togiai was eventually going to become a stud at nose tackle. I just didn’t think it was going to happen this fast and this convincingly. And if anyone outside of the Woody Hayes Athletic Center thought Haskell Garrett was going to be playing at this level, pre- or post-gunshot wound, I call bullshit. Believing defensive tackle was going to be a weakness (or at least having question marks about that group) coming into the season was on the money. Even Ryan Day, in one of his final press conferences before the Nebraska game, openly talked about his concerns there. But they seem to have answered those questions in the early going. The receivers haven’t exceeded my expectations at all. They’ve been about as awesome as I thought they’d be. Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson are the best receiver duo in the country, and Jaxon Smith-Njigba looks like a breakout freshman star. (I predicted Smith-Njigba was going to be the Buckeyes’ leading receiver in yardage mainly to prove a point that I was that high on him coming into the year, though shoutout to Dan for being on the JSN hype train in the spring before the rest of us caught up.)
Have you seen enough from Justin Fields to name him as the most talented Ohio State quarterback in history? If so, why and who is second? If not, what else do you need to see and who do you have ahead of him?
Zack: Yes. The throws he made all of last season were impressive but the plays he’s made through two games this season have been particularly absurd. He’s going to win the Heisman and get taken No. 2 overall in April behind Trevor Lawrence. I thought that if he had beaten Clemson with what should have been a game-winning touchdown pass to Olave it would have polished off a legacy-defining drive. Instead, he’s come back stronger in 2020 and some of the dimes he’s dropped leave your head shaking. He already looks like an NFL quarterback – one who can improvise when the play turns to garbage, can deliver on-time throws and anticipation throws in the pocket, throw off-platform accurately and can stand in the pocket to take a massive hit, get back up and be smiling like the happiest child you’ve ever seen after taking the beating. That stuff matters in a college locker room. It matters in an NFL locker room. He’s already a star in one, and he’s on his way to being a star in the other and we can already see it transpiring today.
Matt: If the question is "most talented Ohio State quarterback", I'm not sure Fields is better than Joe Burrow...yet. If the question is "most talented starting quarterback", Fields is definitely in the conversation.
The key word to this question is talent. Dwayne Haskins, Joe Germaine and Bobby Hoying were outstanding passing quarterbacks. Fields is right there with them in terms of being able to make all of the throws. You can even argue he is more accurate and has better touch.
What Haskins, Germaine and Hoying don't have, in which Fields does, is the game-changing ability to hurt teams with their legs. J.T. Barrett, Braxton Miller, Terrelle Pryor and Troy Smith stressed defenses with their ability to hurt them by ground and air. Is Fields as dynamic a runner as Miller and Pryor? No, but he's not too far off.
When seeking an Ohio State quarterback that can do it all, Justin Fields, Braxton Miller and Troy Smith check all of my boxes. If Fields stays on course, he will likely be at the top of my list.
Colin: Most talented quarterback ever? Yes. Unequivocally. And, quite frankly, I think anybody who doesn’t think he’s the most talented to ever play the position for the Buckeyes is nuts.
If you want to have a discussion about who’s the greatest quarterback in Ohio State history, to me that’s more of a debate. Then, you’re trying to balance everything from pure talent to individual awards to statistics to team success. There’s a lot that goes into determining that, and until we see how this season and Fields’ career ends, I think it’s understandable to not crown him as such. He hasn’t yet won a national championship or Heisman Trophy, and both have been accomplished by former Buckeye quarterbacks.
But if we’re focusing solely on talent, I’m not sure how you have anybody ahead of him. Pre-injury Braxton Miller is probably my runner-up. But in my opinion, Fields is unequivocally the most talented quarterback to ever suit up for the Buckeyes.
There are some great matchups this weekend and I want to get your thoughts on two in particular: Clemson is a 5.5-point favorite at Notre Dame and Michigan is a 3.5-point favorite on the road in Bloomington. Who do you like in each of those contests?
Colin: Give me Clemson and Michigan. Probably makes me a popular man on the website this morning.
Matt: For the game in Bloomington, my bias against a certain team to our north will always have me rooting for the Hoosiers to pull off the upset. The Losing Effect never gets old.
As far as Clemson and Notre Dame go, can I root for a large meteor? With this being 2020, I probably shouldn't make that joke. I'll take Indiana and the points and Dabo's Church over the Fighting Brian Kellys.
Zack: Clemson clobbers Notre Dame. D.J. Uiagalelei is special. Gonna be a star for the next two-plus years in college. And I’ll take Michigan to bounce back and beat Indiana.
Ohio State enters the matchup with Rutgers as a 37-point favorite. Do the Buckeyes cover? Give us your final score and a non-Justin Fields player to watch.
Zack: They do not cover. After betting on Ohio State to cover last year’s 52-point spread against Rutgers, I’m still gun-shy about pulling that trigger. I think a lot of it depends on how C.J. Stroud and Jack Miller handle the offense in the second half and if they’re able to score a couple touchdowns. I don’t know if that’ll happen so I don’t think they cover. On offense, give me Julian Fleming. I think this is the first game in a slew of games the freshmen receivers see a heavily increased snap count, and this could be Fleming’s breakout game. On offense, give me whoever rotates with Williamson at the slot just to start getting a better sense of who Kerry Coombs and Matt Barnes are wanting to work in there. Could be Watts, Ransom or Cam Martinez, and if it’s not Tyreke Johnson making an impact it could wind up being a strong indicator of where he stands in the rotation moving forward.
Matt: Ohio State 55, Rutgers 10. For me, the player to watch is who will replace Justin Fields if this game goes as predicted? Jack Miller III got the call against Nebraska, will Ryan Day go with CJ Stroud against Rutgers? I expect to see Stroud. Hopefully, this is the only drama for the Buckeyes this week.
Colin: Yes, they cover. I’ve got the Buckeyes winning, 49-10, in front of 1,500 or so people at Ohio Stadium. I’m absolutely fascinated by the Greg Schiano hire and what he might be able to do at the helm of a previously hopeless Rutgers football program. But the Scarlet Knight aren’t going to keep it close. While Ryan Day might not run it up, I’m not exactly convinced this Rutgers team will score much on Ohio State.
I’ll pick a starter and a backup I’m eager to get a glimpse at since they might play relatively equally. I’d like to see whether Trey Sermon can get into a rhythm against an inferior opponent. Rutgers offers nothing if not an opportunity for opponents to get a jolt of confidence. And how can my backup to watch not be CJ Stroud? We saw Jack Miller take his first snaps in the opener, and we might get to see both of them on Saturday.
