SMELL THE ROSES
Ohio State dominates Oregon, 41-21, and advances to the College Football Playoff semifinals.
One could say football and other sporting events are won in the gaps, but Ohio State took that saying literally against Tennessee.
After two weeks of rushing struggles against Indiana and Michigan following a season-ending injury to center Seth McLaughlin, the Buckeyes brought out a rushing attack that cut out zone schemes and opted almost exclusively for old-school gap plays against Tennessee. With an aggressive game plan and a better offensive line performance, that decision bore sweet fruits.
“I certainly thought we got good double teams on the inside guys, and I thought our pullers did a nice job on the defensive ends and the second pullers getting to the next level,” Ryan Day said of the reliance on gap scheme concepts such as counter and trap. “I thought our running backs ran through contact and ran with velocity.”
Ohio State outrushed the Volunteers 156 to 152 despite their vaunted defensive line, averaging 4.7 yards per carry, easily the Buckeyes’ best mark since McLaughlin’s injury. Similar production against Oregon in the quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff would be serendipitous for their chances of making the semifinals.
“I think, schematically, our coaches did such a great job at getting all the playmakers the ball in space and just trying to find different ways for us to score,” running back Quinshon Judkins said.
An admitted over-reliance on inside runs bogged the Buckeyes down in a 13-10 loss to Michigan with their ground game picking up just three yards per carry. The Scarlet and Gray came out slinging the rock against Tennessee. Five of the Buckeyes’ six play calls on their opening touchdown drive were passes. The spacing of an aerial assault that beat the Volunteers up vertically and horizontally provided room to run the ball later, with the downhill gap designs proving to be an ideal attack against lighter defensive boxes.
“Certainly when you have the weapons that we have on the outside, it changes how defenses have to play,” Day said last Monday. “So the numbers can equate better. But we’re always looking for a balance. And so I think we found that on Saturday, but now we’ve got to build on it. Nothing that we did on Saturday has anything to do with what’s going to go on on January 1st.”
The Buckeyes relied on a three-paneled revolving door of Austin Siereveld, Tegra Tshabola and Luke Montgomery at offensive guard against Tennessee alongside center Carson Hinzman with each of the trio playing at least 30 snaps.
“I thought all three of those guys did a really nice job and I think to develop depth late in the season like we have is critical,” offensive coordinator Chip Kelly said. “I thought Luke played really well. But I think when you can keep some guys fresh – most teams defensively, Tennessee being one, Oregon being one, rotate defensive linemen. Very rarely are you rotating offensive linemen. So to have three really capable guys inside that can spell each other I think helps keep them fresh a little bit.”
Kelly noted that the emphasis on gap schemes was in part to better suit the talents of those interior linemen, but the matchup with the Volunteers also called for the strategy.
“A little bit,” Kelly said when asked whether the gap attack was unfurled because of the strengths of his guards and center. “I think a lot of times your game plan, specifically in the run game, is dictated by who our opponent is and how they deploy (their defensive linemen), what type of spacing they use up front and then what plays better against that spacing. And then breaking down the individual play of the individual guys. What is their strength? Is it the inside guys, is it the outside guys? How do they handle certain plays?”
TreVeyon Henderson proved electric against the Volunteers, breaking off two touchdown runs longer than 20 yards to finish with 10 carries for 84 yards and the two scores plus four receptions for 54 yards. The second of his end zone trips, which extended Ohio State’s fourth-quarter lead to 42-10, required an impeccably timed jump-cut and excellent contact balance, then acceleration to dust off the play. It was another gap-scheme run, of course, a Y-counter with Tshabola and tight end Bennett Christian pulling.
TreVeyon Henderson has such a fun combo of footwork, contact balance, and burst. One of the best running backs in the 2025 NFL Draft. pic.twitter.com/Da27pBAuUO
— Bobby Football (@Rob__Paul) December 22, 2024
Judkins, the John Oates to Henderson’s Daryl Hall, hasn’t been as efficient in recent weeks. He had a combined 36 carries for 116 yards against Indiana, Michigan and Tennessee, just 3.2 yards per carry. The two-time first-team All-SEC performer is more than capable of bigger outings, however.
“Definitely,” Judkins said when asked if he feels primed for a better day against the Ducks. “As a whole, everybody on the offense can contribute and we have a lot of great playmakers on our team and our coaches will definitely find ways to get us all the ball, get in the best position to score.”
While Oregon’s defensive line is plenty disruptive, there are still gains to be had on the ground against the Ducks, at least relative to their top-10 passing defense. Oregon is just 33rd nationally in rushing yards allowed per game (126.1) and 55th in yards allowed per carry (four).
In the teams’ first meeting on Oct. 12, the Buckeyes rushed for 122 yards in the first half before managing just 19 yards on 12 carries in the second half. There were several reasons for those struggles, the biggest being a season-ending injury to left tackle Josh Simmons that occurred in the second quarter. But Ohio State was also throwing the ball a lot in the second half as it fell behind Oregon in various spots, plus Kelly said there were a lot of “self-inflicted wounds,” including a fumble from Judkins, a seldom-seen McLaughlin bad snap and a botched third-down play.
Kelly and the Buckeyes’ offense are eager to rectify some of those mistakes as they dissect what worked and what didn’t against the Ducks the first time. That noted, Kelly expects both offenses and defenses to look different than they did two-and-a-half months ago.
“That’s rare in college football that you get to play a team twice,” Kelly said. “You’ve got a game against them, and they also have a game against you, so they’re looking at the exact same thing. You look at that game, I think that was the sixth game of the year, there was a lot of games since then. They’ve done some different things defensively since that game up until the Penn State game a couple weeks ago in their last game. I don’t know how similar the two games will end up playing, to be honest with you.”
Ohio State may have found success in the gaps against Tennessee, but that means little for Kelly and company moving forward, he and Day said. Whatever the formula is for Wednesday, the Buckeyes will need efficiency on the ground to complement their elite passing attack against the Ducks.
“I think every game is different, so I think you don’t look at, ‘Hey, we did this against Tennessee, so we’ll do this against our next opponent,’” Kelly said. “I think it’s always the matchups and the individual matchups, our O-line versus their D-line, which I think is one of the best D-lines in the country.”
