Seven weeks into the season and Ohio State’s issues on the ground are unceasing.
In two of the Buckeyes’ last three games, they’ve averaged less than two yards per carry running the football. Answers to how to improve those types of figures have been the same for two months this year – it’s never any one thing, the Buckeyes need better execution and so on and so forth.
“I wish I could point to one thing, but it was a combination again,” Ryan Day said Tuesday. “Which isn’t good enough. (Penn State) is very good against the run, don’t get me wrong. But there were times when there was something that wasn’t fit up front properly or it was the running back maybe not hitting the hole correctly.”
Day likely means those types of things when he says them. Solving such a problem is rarely as simple as a singular change or a singular piece getting better. So one has to wonder if Ohio State can still improve by a leap or two in the run game or if it is doomed to be below-average in that area.
“Yeah, I do (think we can get there), I do,” Day said. “It’s a valid question. I think there have been signs of that. We’re going to keep pushing. Getting a couple of guys back could help as well, help us become more explosive. So we keep pushing. We believe we can do it and I know we can.”
Ohio State is currently 101st nationally in rushing yards per game (127) and 95th in yards per carry (3.8). If it stands, it will be the Buckeyes' worst yards-per-carry mark since they gained 3.3 per attempt in 2003.
Left tackle Josh Simmons is a player who embodies much of where the team is running the football in Day’s eyes. There are good moments, but also maddening inconsistencies.
“There’s some really great snaps of film out there, and you’re seeing finish, you’re seeing pad level, you’re seeing really high-end play,” Day said. “It just needs to be a little bit more consistent. He knows that, and it’s not just him. That’s why when someone asked, ‘Are these (problems) fixable?’ I believe they are.”
Ohio State averaged 6.2 yards per carry against Western Kentucky and found some success against Purdue as well, with its two most efficient rushers on the day – Dallan Hayden and Xavier Johnson – combining for 16 carries for 115 yards (7.2 yards per attempt). The team only managed 3.9 yards per carry in that game, but much of that stemmed from the Buckeyes losing yardage on sacks late in the game.
“It just needs to be a little bit more consistent. ... It’s not just him. That’s why when someone asked, ‘Are these (problems) fixable?’ I believe they are.”– Ryan Day on Josh Simmons and the Ohio State running game
Hayden, who ran 11 times for 76 yards against the Boilermakers, hasn’t seen the field otherwise outside of a brief stint featuring one catch for a loss of 2 yards against Indiana in Week 1. Day noted previously that the team wants to redshirt him, but with the continued issues it might be worth testing if he can replicate his Purdue production.
“We’re going to keep pushing that this week and evaluate it again this week,” Day said. “We’ll see how the week goes. But we’re going to push it to see if we can get him in a game this week.”
Ohio State picked up just 1.9 yards per carry against Penn State, the same number it posted two weeks earlier against Maryland. That included an 11-carry, 10-yard second half from Miyan Williams after a more promising first half in which he gained 52 yards on 13 carries.
Day doesn’t feel many of the problems in the run game have stemmed from playcalling, and he reiterated that stance after watching the film against the Nittany Lions.
“There were a couple of runs in there that I wish schematically we had back, but looking at the film I don’t think there was anything there that we just had an extra guy coming off the edge,” Day said. “So we’ve got to execute it better. We’ve got to coach it better, and that’s on us as coaches to get it done. So we’ll work our tails off to get it done this week.”
Another thing that hurt the Buckeyes against Penn State, at least slightly, was an injury to backup quarterback Devin Brown that removed the team’s red zone package featuring him as a rushing threat. A similar package could potentially be introduced with freshman Lincoln Kienholz, but it remains to be seen if the staff trusts a player in his first season with the ball in his hands.
“He’s very athletic,” Day said. “He’s younger, but he is athletic. So we’re going to look to see if we can possibly get him in that role. See how the week goes.”
Day also hopes for a return this week from lead running back TreVeyon Henderson, whose 6.7 yards per carry this year are 2.4 ahead of Chip Trayanum and 3.5 ahead of Williams, his two primary backups. Henderson has 295 rushing yards and five touchdowns in four games this season.
“We hope he makes a big impact,” Day said. “We know that he can hit home runs. He did that in the Notre Dame game and certainly that was a big difference in what we were doing. We have confidence in all of our running backs but he does allow us the opportunity to hit a home run and be explosive.”
Treveyon Henderson 61 yards to the house! @OhioStateFB
— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) September 24, 2023
: NBC & Peacock pic.twitter.com/ISwex50jAW
Day has shared similar sentiments in previous weeks about the health of the Virginia native, however. Regardless, whenever Henderson returns, it should provide a boost to the offense.
The health of Henderson, better blocking up front, improved reads out of the backfield backfield, schematics, coaching; whatever combination of problems are persisting, Ohio State has four weeks to fix them if all goes according to chalk before its ultimate test of the season in Ann Arbor against Michigan.
