Ohio State Stays Poised, Finds Rhythm in Passing Game in Second Half Against Maryland

In nature, great transformations and creations start with a period of stasis.

Every baby born to every animal species on this planet gestates, whether inside an egg or while being carried by a parent. Caterpillars build cocoons and sleep awhile before transforming into butterflies.

Ohio State’s offense certainly felt like it underwent a period of stasis in the first half against Maryland. The Buckeyes scored their only touchdown on a pick-six from their defense, while their offense averaged 4.7 yards per play. They managed to burst from their cocoon – or egg or whichever analogous vessel one could choose – in the second half, picking up 7.5 yards per play and scoring 27 unanswered points to put the Terrapins away 37-17. Of the team's 240 yards in the third and fourth quarters, 194 came through the air.

Still, the Buckeyes are searching for ways to start faster than they did on Saturday.

“The number one goal is to be 1-0 on Saturday, so check that box,” Ryan Day said. “We want to play well in the second half, check that box. We wanted to start fast in this game and didn’t get that done. So we’ve got to see why that is.”

Ohio State moved the chains a mere six times in the first half on six possessions, averaging 1.1 yards per carry on the ground. None of its first five drives went longer than 24 yards. The first attempt to matriculate downfield was perhaps the most disastrous, a three-and-out that ended with a turnover on downs via a bad snap on a punt.

“I couldn’t quite understand what was going on there in the first couple drives,” Day said. “Didn’t quite get in sync there on offense, then had the botched snap there on the punt. ... But that is the game and you’ve got to respond. I thought we did respond well in the second half, got into a rhythm.”

One cause of the issues, Day stated, was that the offense got behind schedule and then had long distances to convert on third down. The Buckeyes failed on a 3rd-and-2 on their opening drive, but all told they had four third downs of 7 yards or more in the first half and didn’t convert any of them.

Ohio State went 1-for-7 (14%) on third down in the first half before going 2-for-5 (40%) in the following 30 minutes – a meager 25 percent overall.

“We got ourselves off-schedule (in the first half) and then found ourselves in some third-and-bad situations, which is why the third down looks the way it does,” Day said. “One thing about the third downs a couple of weeks ago (against Notre Dame) we did a nice job of is we stayed in pretty manageable situations. This was not the case today.”

Another key element of the Buckeyes’ attack that couldn’t stay on schedule early was its quarterback.

Kyle McCord opened Saturday 5-for-12 with 43 yards through the air, a major discrepancy from his final stat line of 19-for-29 with 320 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.

McCord held the ball too long and his timing was off, alongside some inaccurate throws, he said in his postgame press conference.

“Early on I missed some opportunities or just saw it a second late,” McCord said. “That’s nobody else but myself. Some areas I’ll have to continue to grow on and continue to find ways to start fast. Because if we can replicate what we did in the second half but just do that in the first half, I think that’s a completely different game.”

Eventually, the signal caller found his mark.

After a severely underthrown ball – that was still caught – to Julian Fleming in the third quarter cost him what would have been his first touchdown of the day, McCord dropped a 2nd-and-33 dime to Marvin Harrison Jr. for a first down and then linked with Cade Stover for a 44-yard score the following play.

What a sequence for Ohio State's offense. pic.twitter.com/5Ttt9L87UB
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) October 7, 2023

A second touchdown pass of 12 yards to Harrison was called back for an illegal motion penalty, only for McCord to find Harrison again for a 17-yard strike the next play.

“Some really good play by Marvin Harrison, and we needed that because they were putting a lot of guys in the box and left the middle of the field open at times,” Day said. “We took advantage of that in the second half.”

Marvin Harrison Jr. with the @KingJames silencer celebration pic.twitter.com/nY17rtBaSy
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) October 7, 2023

All told, McCord went 11-of-14 passing with 194 yards and two touchdowns in the second half after an 8-of-15 first half with 126 yards.

While the offense found its footing, it was the defense that kept the scarlet and gray aloft through the first two quarters.

For over 36 minutes of game time, safety Josh Proctor had Ohio State’s only touchdown, a 24-yard pick-six in the second quarter that cut Maryland’s lead to 10-7. Ransom picked up a second interception later in the contest and the defense also made two fourth-down stops en route to holding the Terrapins to 4 yards per play and 302 yards total.

JOSH PROCTOR PICK-SIX. pic.twitter.com/zRXZOgiH5V
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) October 7, 2023

Maryland quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa had a fairly bad game by his standards against Ohio State’s secondary, going 21-of-41 (51%) with 196 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. The Buckeyes sacked him twice.

Day noted that he has no problem securing victories with his defense rather than his offense.

“I have no preference as long as we win,” Day said. “I think the defense did some great things in this game. I thought Jim (Knowles) and the staff did a really good job with the game plan. I thought they were a step ahead in terms of the defenses that we were in, he did a great job of getting them into the right calls.”

Maryland had its only sustained touchdown drive – its first-quarter score came on a short field of 30 yards following the above-mentioned botched punt – to open the second half, but from that point on it was all Ohio State.

Harrison hauled in a 58-yard second-quarter bomb from McCord that traveled 57 yards in the air, and Jayden Fielding capped the drive with a game-tying field goal.

Marvelous Marv, Route Man Marv, Super Marv, etc. pic.twitter.com/A6acpMHBsW
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) October 7, 2023

The Buckeyes tied things against on their first drive of the second half, a four-play, 76-yard drive capped by a 4-yard touchdown run from Chip Trayanum.

McCord’s two touchdown passes to Stover and Harrison were sandwiched between a pair of Fielding field goals, while Maryland gained 46 yards the rest of the second half after its opening touchdown drive.

“One of the things you’re starting to see about this team is we don’t panic. If it’s not going quite right, we’re going to keep pushing forward,” Day said. “Maybe in the past, if things weren’t going well in the first half, if the scoreboard wasn’t turning over every couple of drives, everybody would start getting panicky. I think these guys have some poise, they’ve played some games and I’m counting on that experience to pay off here in October and November.”

Even with the second-half response, there are multiple areas beyond third downs where Ohio State needs to improve, Day said. The team “expects to be higher” than its 62 yards rushing and 1.9 yards per carry, even against a defense frequently putting a lot of defenders in the box and without TreVeyon Henderson.

“One of the things you’re starting to see about this team is we don’t panic. If it’s not going quite right, we’re going to keep pushing forward."– Ryan Day

While coaches and fans certainly didn’t agree with every call made by the officials on Saturday, 10 penalties for 81 yards, including a 15-yard sideline interference call against Day, is also something that will need to be ironed out.

“I’m going to have to run with the guys tomorrow for that one. I’ll take that one,” Day said. “Look, football is a tough sport. There’s a lot of passion. There’s a lot going on out there. I’m coaching my tail off. I will say this, we can’t have that many penalties. That can’t happen. We can disagree on a few of them, but there’s still too many out there.”

From McCord’s perspective, the biggest difference team-wide from the first half to the second was in the performance of its players, not anything the coaching staff did differently.

“We just executed better,” McCord said. “I feel like there were definitely opportunities for us in the first half to go score. It wasn’t anything that we didn’t expect (from Maryland's defense), for the most part. It wasn’t anything that the coaches could have done better. I feel like as an offense, as the quarterback of the offense, I feel like we need to take initiative, and regardless of what they call, make it work.”

Whether the solution is execution or a better ground game or schematics or any number of other things, Ohio State will need to find ways to burst from its stasis earlier against opponents like Penn State and Michigan.