After Ohio State’s loss to Michigan State, head coach Urban Meyer made a decision that, in all reality, probably should have been made much sooner. Meyer opted to move the Buckeyes’ offensive coordinator, Ed Warinner, from the sideline up to the press box.
It was a choice made in an attempt to simplify Ohio State’s playcalling. The thought process was Warinner would be able to process things much faster with a bird’s eye view rather than a field-level one, and he would be sitting alongside the Buckeyes’ co-coordinator, Tim Beck, making communication between the two much easier.
In the two games that followed, Ohio State’s offense looked much more like it was supposed to entering that 2015 season. The Buckeyes racked up 482 yards of total offense in a 42-13 throttling of archrival Michigan in the week right after that loss to the Spartans, and in a 44-28 victory against Notre Dame a few weeks later in the Fiesta Bowl, Ohio State totaled 496 yards of offense.
The Buckeyes’ offense looked like the machine it was supposed to, but unfortunately for Ohio State, the switch was made too late in the season as the Buckeyes missed out on an opportunity to defend their national title.
“The whole thing about being removed like that, elevated, is you can process all the information being relayed to it,” Warinner said Tuesday following Ohio State’s third fall camp practice of 2016. “Someone doesn’t have to see it, tell it to you, you don’t have to listen to it, process it and make a decision. You can do all that on your own.”
Warinner being in the press box alongside Beck was so effective that it prompted some offseason moves for Ohio State. Warinner shifted over from offensive line coach to tight ends coach — one of the reasons Meyer was so hesitant to take Warinner off the field was because he couldn’t be around the offensive line — and Greg Studrawa was brought in as the new coach up front. Meyer then announced in the spring the plan for 2016 would be to have Warinner remain upstairs and call plays from the press box.
The hope, of course, is Ohio State will get off to a much faster start offensively this upcoming season. The Buckeyes often looked out of sync on that side of the ball in the 10 weeks leading up to Michigan State and things finally reached a boiling point in that loss to the Spartans.
In addition to Warinner calling plays from the sidelines, another key component to Ohio State’s offensive struggles in 2015 was the constant shuffle at quarterback between J.T. Barrett and Cardale Jones. The Buckeyes’ offense never seemed to get in a rhythm as it never really solidified the most important position in football for the majority of the season. That obviously won’t be an issue this season as Barrett is the unquestioned quarterback for Ohio State.
If there are speed bumps at the beginning of this season, they’re likely to come for a different reason. The Buckeyes lost eight offensive starters from that 2015 team, and replacing those guys will be a daunting task. But Warinner said having Pat Elflein at center and Barrett at quarterback will go a long way in easing those potential growing pains.
“Whether you had a veteran team or a young team, to have a J.T. Barrett, one of the best quarterbacks in the country, somebody you trust, you respect and is a great leader — that’s where it all starts,” Warinner said. “When you’ve got Pat Elflein at center and J.T. Barrett, that’s a great starting point.”
Warinner also said the Buckeyes hope to play a little bit faster this season — every coach says that this time of year, so don’t read too much into it — and beginning the season up in the press box certainly allows Ohio State to do so. Having both Warinner and Beck upstairs as play callers together helps the Buckeyes play with the tempo they want.
“That’s the way [Meyer] wanted to go so that we could play faster and that we could process faster,” Warinner said. “Get the information from myself and Tim Beck down to the field as quickly as we can. It was a good working mix because, as you guys know, I worked with Tim Beck before at Kansas and we had a lot of success together doing that.”
Ohio State made some mistakes with how it handled the quarterback situation — and the offense in general — during the 2015 season. The staff believes there is a plan in place to help fix those and make the necessary changes for 2016.
“It’s a good flow and we are philosophically in an alignment on what we want to do,” Warinner said. “Really, it’s a good situation; [the] offensive staff is in a good place.”
