Social Reactions: Ohio State Gets Fancy, and Gets the Running Game Rolling

By Johnny Ginter on October 15, 2023 at 7:44 am
Running back Dallan Hayden and Ryan Day
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There was a marked difference in Ohio State's running game between last week against Maryland and this Saturday against Purdue, and that change was entirely due to a willingness to get positively capital-F Fancy (for them, at least) with both playcalling and personnel choice.

Having spent four quarters almost literally pounding their heads into a wall of turtle-shaped bricks, this week Ryan Day and company adopted a different approach: not doing that. Instead of relying on Chip Trayanum to rush up the gut 20 times for about three yards a carry, they only had him do that six times (for about 4.7 yards per carry). Instead of steadfastly running to the short side of the field, Ohio State sometimes ran plays to places where there weren't seven defenders waiting to tackle them. Instead of ignoring a 99.999% success rate of having your quarterback just sneak it across the line in short yardage situations, Ryan Day said "hmm, let's do the easy thing, instead of the not easy thing."

And, of course, they made the correct decision and gave Dallan Hayden most of the carries and let him pop off for 76 yards and 6.9 yards per carry. That, plus some funkiness with Devin Brown in goal line situations, warmed the cockles of my cold dead heart because that is the essence of college football: a willingness to change and evolve, even during the course of what's ostensibly a great season, knowing that things can get better.

Was a lot of it thrown in to make Penn State gameplan for a bunch of weird crap next week? I hope not! But even if it was, for this week at least, it was fun as hell to watch.

THE TEAM

THE ALUMNI

MAN THAT'S A HUGE PRETZEL

THE REST

Next week is Penn State, and I'm weirdly confident? Kind of? Anyway, we'll see you then!

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