Ryan Day met with the media yesterday afternoon to reflect on Ohio State's 24-point win in Wrigley Field last weekend with an eye on Saturday's top-5 clash with Indiana.
The matchup Saturday will pit the Buckeyes against their third opponent ranked inside the top five this season while Indiana will be playing in its first game ever with both teams ranked that high.
The Hoosiers, standing at a perfect 10-0, are a supremely confident bunch led by their outspoken head coach, Curt Cignetti, and Ohio State should expect Indiana to play with nothing to lose.
Day will counter Indiana's swinging for the fences with his own high-powered offense - one that relies on two elite tailbacks and a trio of talented wide receivers. True freshman Jeremiah Smith leads the team in catches, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns while sophomore Carnell Tate has realized a nice uptick in production over the last few weeks. Meanwhile, veteran star wideout Emeka Egbuka hasn't been much of a factor over the last month.
That said, Day isn't worried about Egbuka in the slightest and thinks factors out the receiver's control are part of the story:
I think one of the things from this year, when you just look at the number of plays we've had, and then when you look at the number of possessions we've had, they're down. we're huddling and going a little bit slower on offense for a lot of different reasons. But when you also have a game where the end of the game is kind of getting a little bit run into the ground and those guys aren't playing the last couple of possessions, that adds up too.
this team here wants to win and so we all have to be unselfish and willing to sacrifice.
ultimately this team wants to win and they have one mindset. so to me, it's not about touches and the guys have been great about that. I think emeka's been a great example.
In case you haven't looked at the numbers, Egbuka was on an electric pace over the first six games as he posted 40 catches for 526 yards and six touchdowns, good for per game averages of 6.7 receptions for 87.7 yards and a touchdown. The sixth game, the loss to Oregon, saw Egbuka grab 10 balls for 93 yards and a score (with two carries for 20 yards taboot).
Over his last four contests however, Egbuka has just nine total catches for 86 yards and two touchdowns which convert to per game averages of 2.3 receptions for 21.5 yards. He did produce touchdown grabs in two of those four games. One of those a key 25-yard strike to get OSU on the board, cutting Penn State's lead to 10-7 in what became a 20-13 victory.
That said, the bottom line is his production is down sharply after the hot start. Day spoke generally to some factors like snaps played and lopsided games but at least from a snaps perspective, Egbuka's participation hasn't dropped off as much as the production.
Egbuka played 285 snaps across Ohio State's first six games, good for 47.5 per game. Over the last four contests, he's played 180, or 45 snaps per.
More likely, as Day intimated, defensive game planning may be a factor because as he likes to say, coverage dictates where the ball goes. And while Egbuka's catches decreased by 4.3 per game and his yards dropped by 66.2 over the last four contests, Tate saw a nice uptick. The Chicago product has 16 catches for 225 yards with three touchdowns over his last four outings compared to 15 catches for 232 yards and one score over the first six contests.
The life of a receiver will typically experience more ebbs and flows in production than say a starting tailback so there's little to worry about here. Especially as Tate and Smith have done more than enough to keep Ohio State's receiving corps humming.
That said, don't be surprised if Egbuka finds the ball in his hands, both via the pass and the run, at a higher clip than we've seen the last few weeks against the Hoosiers on Saturday. As they say, big time players make big time plays in big time games and a top-5 showdown against Indiana with so much on the line certainly qualifies.
