Five Things: Ryan Day's Squad Records Ugly 21-17 Win Over Nebraska

By Chris Lauderback on October 27, 2024 at 10:10 am
Carnell Tate
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Entering the contest as 25.5-point favorites, Ohio State found itself trailing Nebraska 17-14 with 10 minutes left in regulation before a 9-yard touchdown pass from Will Howard to Quinshon Judkins helped the Buckeyes fend off disaster in Columbus. 

Ohio State's offensive line was downright abysmal. Despite having two of the best tailbacks in college football, the running game was non-existent and Howard faced consistent pressure as the Buckeyes recorded just 285 yards of total offense while running 47 plays - their fewest since the 2015 loss to Michigan State.

Two long touchdown passes - a 40-yarder to Carnell Tate and a 60-yarder to Jeremiah Smith (who has scored at least one TD in all seven games and tied Cris Carter's freshman record for touchdown catches in a season(8)) - accounted for 67% of Ohio State's points and 35% of its total offense. 

With the offense largely stagnant, Ohio State's defense answered the bell after facing heavy scrutiny following its performance in the Buckeyes' 32-31 loss to Oregon two weeks ago. 

Jim Knowles' group turned in a goal line stand to ensure a Howard interception wasn't costly and recorded an interception of its own on Nebraska's last-gasp possession to end the game. 

The win improved the Buckeyes to 6-1 overall and 3-1 in Big Ten play with a Big Noon showdown at undefeated Penn State on tap next weekend. 

Before we turn full attention to the Nittany Lions, here are Five Things from an uneven victory over the Cornhuskers. 

HOWARD POWERS OFFENSE

Despite his offensive line ensuring Ohio State would have no run game and barely any pass protection, Will Howard did what was needed for Ohio State's offense to put up just enough points to win. 

He registered his second-fewest passing yards in a game this season but that was mostly due to Ohio State running only 44 plays that weren't kneel downs. No doubt, the defense bailed him out with the goal line stand after a rushed throw led to an interception that Nebraska returned 34 yards to the OSU 7-yard line. 

What Howard did do was connect on two deep shots for touchdowns. The first came as he found Carnell Tate on a post route via a just slightly underthrown 40-yard strike to make it 7-0 late in the first quarter. 

The second came via a 60-yard connection with Jeremiah Smith, this time on a perfectly placed ball off play action, giving the Buckeyes a 14-3 edge midway through the second quarter. 

Both deep balls were better thrown than most we've seen this year from Howard although the strike to Smith was clearly the better of the two. 

Howard also shined immediately after Nebraska took a 17-14 lead with 10:47 left in regulation. Starting at his own 25, Howard found Tate for 37 yards on the first play of the drive, moving OSU to the Huskers 38 yard line. Facing 4th-and-1 four plays later, Day had no confidence his line could create a 1-yard hole so Howard calmly rolled right and found Emeka Egbuka for three yards to move the chains. 

Two plays later on 2nd-and-3 from the Nebraska 19, Howard perfectly executed a read option and ran for 10 yards to the 9. One snap later, Howard went through his progressions to find Quinshon Judkins out of the backfield for a 9-yard touchdown giving Ohio State a 21-17 lead it with 6:04 left that it would not relinquish. 

It wasn't quite a do or die situation but it was damn close and I give him credit for delivering especially given the struggles of the guys up front. 

Howard completed 13-of-16 throws on the afternoon, marking a third-straight game and four out of the last five where he completed at least 80% of his attempts. He also accounted for 235 of Ohio State's 285 total yards and all three touchdowns.

PRESSURE POINT

After tallying exactly zero sacks and two tackles for loss against Oregon, leading to Nick Saban cracking on Ohio State's "antiquated" strategy to generate pressure, Day talked ad nauseam about how the lack of production wasn't acceptable and that he was intimately involved in making sure those issues were fixed before taking on the Huskers. 

Nebraska's offense probably had something to do with it but to Ohio State's credit, the defense did show some different looks and pressures to generate some chaos and the results included three sacks and 13 tackles for loss - the latter the most by an OSU defense since it logged 15 versus Indiana during the 2021 season. 

All three levels contributed to the tally as the defensive line logged all three sacks (one each by JT Tuimoloau, Ty Hamilton and Tyleik Williams) and 5.5 tackles for loss, paced by two each from Tuimoloau and Williams. 

Mike linebacker Cody Simon played his best game this season which featured three tackles for loss as part of a team-leading eight stops on the afternoon. Two of those were critical, coming on Nebraska's last possession down four points. Simon blew up a 1st-and-15 toss to running back Emmett Johnson for a 3-yard loss and on the next snap he again blasted Johnson after a short pass, this time for a 1-yard loss to set up 3rd-and-19 from the Nebraska 37. Jordan Hancock picked off Dylan Raiola on the next snap to seal the deal. 

In the secondary, Denzel Burke posted two TFLs in run support while Caleb Downs and Davison Igbinosun logged one each and Jermaine Mathews Jr. chipped in a half. 

The negative plays (-39 yards) helped force Nebraska into 16 third down scenarios and it converted just five, including 2-of-7 in the second half. 

The Huskers came in averaging 5.1 tackles for loss allowed per game before Ohio State lit them up for a baker's dozen. 

CARNELL GREAT

Considering how spectacular Jeremiah Smith and Emeka Egbuka have been for Ohio State this season, it's easy to forget about fellow wideout Carnell Tate especially after he missed the Iowa game due to injury. 

Yesterday, with Egbuka a non-factor with three catches for 20 yards, Tate stepped up to make big plays alongside Smith on the way to his first 100-yard receiving game as a Buckeye. Tate tallied four receptions for 102 yards on four targets and a couple of his catches were crucial for the good guys.  

His second touchdown of the season, via a 40-yard strike from Howard, served as his longest catch so far this year and gave Ohio State a 7-0 lead with 29 ticks left in the opening quarter. 

Late in the second quarter he hauled in a 17-yard toss from Howard to help the Buckeyes get into field goal range (but Jayden Fielding biffed a 42-yard field goal try). 

Finally, with Ohio State trailing 17-14 midway through the fourth quarter, Tate got loose down the right sideline for 37 yards to kickstart what became the game-winning drive. His catch and run put OSU in excellent shape with 1st-and-10 at the Husker 38. Seven plays later from the Nebraska 9, Howard found Judkins in the end zone for what became the game-winning score. 

Salute to Tate for stepping up and leading OSU in receiving yards and logging a touchdown on a day when Egbuka wasn't able to do his thing. 

OFFENSIVE LINE IN SHAMBLES?

I think most level-headed fans expected Ohio State's offensive line to have some missed assignments after its best guy, left tackle Josh Simmons, was lost for the season via a leg injury suffered at Oregon. 

But what happened yesterday in Ohio Stadium was nothing short of pitiful. Simmons' replacement, four-year man Zen Michalski, struggled in both pass pro and run blocking, singlehandedly blowing up a few possessions, before he left the game with an injury in the fourth quarter. 

And while Michalski's performance stuck out like a sore thumb as he whiffed on a block to allow a sack, got beat in another 1-on-1 leading directly to a Howard fumble, gave up a pressure that was at least a small factor in Howard's rushed interception, and surrendered numerous other QB pressures and run blocking miscues, he was not alone. Left guard Donovan Jackson, who Ohio State is really counting on as its most experienced and decorated lineman, once again had some missed assignments and reserve right guard Austin Siereveld gave up a sack. 

With the line struggling to do anything consistently or cohesively, it allowed two sacks and seven tackles for loss as the OSU rushing attack managed a mere 64 yards on 2.1 per carry. Even the sack-adjusted YPC was just 2.6 per attempt. 

Ohio State ball carriers produced just two runs over 10 yards across 31 attempts. Elite running backs Quinshon Judkins (10 for 29) and TreVeyon Henderson (10 for 25) combined to average 2.7 per try as they often encountered defenders in the backfield.

Thirty-two percent of Ohio State's rushing attempts went for zero or negative yardage on the day and the Buckeyes went 0-for-6 in generating a first down on snaps where just two yards or less were needed to move the chains. 

Unable to run the ball and often behind the chains due to the line's poor execution, Ohio State converted 1-of-10 third down conversion attempts and 1-of-2 tries on fourth down. 

The apparent lack of depth at tackle - a problem many expressed concern over during spring - wasn't addressed in the portal and at least yesterday, doesn't appear to have been addressed via player development. That of course falls on Day and offensive line coach Justin Frye, who has had his share of misses on the recruiting trail over the last few years. 

Speaking of Day, post game he didn't sound like a man who feels he can count on his offensive line coach to fix the issue as he offered, “Yeah, I got to go back and watch the film and figure that all out myself. It seemed like a little bit of both (poor execution and Nebraska playing well), quite honestly. It’s not good enough when we’ve gotta be able to run the football. We didn't do that today. That's why we put the defense in bad spots. That’s why we were 1-for-10 on third down.”

PRIVATE RYAN

Addressing the Skull Session crowd pregame, Ryan Day let 'em know, "Today it's about action, not about words." 

Then his team proceeded to start slow, take a modest 14-6 lead into halftime and fall behind briefly in the fourth quarter before answering with a late touchdown and game-sealing interception to win 21-17 in a game it was favored to win by over 25 points. 

For all the knocks on Day - chiefly, waiting too long to dismiss underperforming assistants, stubborn playcalling due to rabbit ears / trying to prove a point that doesn't need proven, an inability to consistently win games of consequence against top-tier competition, and usually doing so by collapsing and/or playing extremely tight in the fourth quarter - one thing he hasn't done is fall victim to an unranked team. 

He can still say he hasn't allowed the major upset to happen but with two weeks to prepare after the loss at Oregon, he must be as displeased as many of his detractors about yesterday's performance. 

To his credit, he talked for those two weeks about changing some things on defense after Saban called out OSU's scheme as the failure point in generating zero pressure against the Ducks, and he actually did change some things which got immediate results as the Buckeyes racked up 13 TFLs and three sacks against the Huskers. 

But on the other side of the ball, it looked like Day and his offensive line coach, Justin Frye, had two minutes instead of two weeks to figure out a plan to replace left tackle Josh Simmons, who was lost for the season in the loss in Eugene. 

Not to crush backup left tackle Zen Michalski but the hard truth is he was largely unplayable even as Day and Frye left him in the game to get Ohio State off schedule time after time after time before Zen left with an injury late in the contest. I get some early jitters but his struggles appeared far beyond that.

The fact Ohio State didn't have a better option is a failure at the feet of Day and Frye that dates back well before yesterday. The Buckeyes knew they could've used some tackle depth via the portal after last season but nothing materialized. And then during fall camp all we kept hearing was how the reserves were developing nicely. Yeah, maybe along the interior but based on Zen's (small sample size) performance and the fact the answer may now be to bump out a guard to tackle, you have to question the roster management during the offseason, Frye's numerous misses on the recruiting trail, and his development of the guys he does have on the roster. 

Unless things turn quickly, the offseason failure to add a dependable edge blocker could undermine all the other wins in retaining players and attracting key adds in the portal that helped shaped a roster analysts continue to rave about from a pure talent aspect. 

Speaking as someone who has largely defended Day despite some of his flaws - mostly because some of his big game losses came against teams knowing what plays he was going to run, and Georgia being really, really good, I'm finally starting to tire of how the words don't match the production. 

As Day tries to find an answer on his offensive line, you can bet you'll hear all the right things this week during media availability. The thing is, it's about action, not words. 

The good news is everything is still in front of this team, it does have a ton of talent, and at least focusing on next week, Penn State has some issues of its own to work out. 

The question is whether yesterday's offensive struggles were a harbinger of things to come or just another speed bump on the way to glory in a day and age in which going undefeated and looking consistently dominant isn't super realistic, or necessary, to be the national champion. 

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