Welcome to the Skull Session.
Good is not good enough anymore.
That was the message Larry Johnson sent Ohio State and its fans days before the Buckeyes' top-five showdown with Penn State.
"Good is not good enough anymore. We have to be great in every game we play ... You want to be average today? Go somewhere else. You want to be good today? Go somewhere else. When you're chasing greatness, you gotta look like that."
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) October 31, 2024
Larry Johnson pic.twitter.com/Xs2cqLWspP
I like it.
Have a good Friday.
IT’S ALL ABOUT CONFIDENCE, BABY. Ryan Day is confident Ohio State’s offensive line is ready for the challenge at Penn State. And if he’s confident, I’m confident!
“Our depth will be challenged, but we have some veterans up there like (Donovan Jackson), Seth (McLaughlin) and Josh Fryar,” he said Thursday on The Ryan Day Radio Show. “Tegra (Tshabola has) played. Austin (Siereveld has) played. Carson (Hinzman) has played. These guys have experience. That’s good. They will be challenged in the environment, but they’ll be ready.”
I found Day’s inclusion of Hinzman interesting. The redshirt sophomore started at center in 12 games last season but lost a competition with McLaughlin in the preseason. Could we see the Buckeyes use him at left guard if and when Jackson kicks out to left tackle? I think it’s possible. Their experience next to one another, albeit at different positions, could be valuable for the Buckeyes in a hostile environment like Beaver Stadium. And it’s not like Hinzman has never worked at guard. In addition to his battle with McLaughlin at center, Hinzman also competed with Tshabola to start at right guard this year.
No matter who lines up across the five spots, Day reiterated, “They’ll be ready to go.”
Ryan Day is confident Ohio States offensive line is ready for this weeks challenge and is so focused on Penn State that he didnt know it was Halloween. https://t.co/1HltRw8gal
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) October 31, 2024
They’ll need to be, considering the comments Day made about Penn State’s defense.
“They do a good job at the line of scrimmage. (Abdul) Carter is really, really good. They have multiple guys up front that are all NFL-caliber players. Linebackers play downhill. Secondary is always competitive and really good in match coverage. Tom Allen is the coordinator there, but they’ve kept the same identity (mixed with) a little bit of his stuff there.”
One area Day said will be crucial for Ohio State's success is in short-yardage situations. (The Thursday Skull Session had some statistics that showed how poor the Buckeyes have been in those situations this season.)
“We have to get more knockback,” Day said. “We have to get more push, and we have to get the first down. It will be even more of a challenge this week. We have to get that done. There were some short-yardage situations and some medium-range situations where we didn’t execute well enough (against Nebraska). We have to get knockback, and even when there’s a collision, we have to finish off those runs for an extra couple of yards.
Former Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer offered a solution to Ohio State’s short-yardage woes on The Triple Option podcast this week. Regardless of who lines up from tackle to tackle, Meyer said the answer lies with – and there’s no surprise here – the quarterback run.
We’ll look at Meyer’s comments in the next section.
“SIMPLIFY THE RUN GAME.” Meyer loves a quarterback who can run the football. Tim Tebow, Braxton Miller, J.T. Barrett – the list goes on. With that affection in mind, Meyer offered some advice to Day and Ohio State offensive coordinator Chip Kelly on how to make the run game more effective, particularly in short-yardage situations.
“First of all, simplify the run game,” Meyer said. “You’re going to go zone right, zone left, power right, power left. That’s it. And then I would also gap scheme right, gap scheme left and that’s it. But I would run the quarterback 15-20 times because the ultimate equalizer is that guy. You gain a hat when he runs the ball. So direct snap to him and then also every play, a replay. They have not done that yet. That’s the run game. Zone right, zone left, gap left, (gap right) and get the quarterback involved.”
#OhioStates keys to success to get this offense back on track #Buckeyes #GoBucks@wendys #WendysPartner pic.twitter.com/bJ5L7iAlgu
— Urban Meyer (@CoachUrbanMeyer) October 30, 2024
Howard has run the ball 41 times for 91 yards and five touchdowns this season. Keep in mind, college football – for reasons I will never understand – counts yards lost from a sack against a quarterback. Without the five sacks Ohio State’s offensive line has allowed on him this year, Howard has 36 carries for over 100 yards and those five scores.
While around 3 yards per attempt is not spectacular, there’s reason to believe that Howard can have success while shouldering a considerable workload. After all, he has 1,012 rushing yards and 24 rushing touchdowns across four seasons at Kansas State and half a season at Ohio State.
“The most dangerous place to be is in that pocket,” Meyer said. “You saw that last week. Will Howard got tattooed a few times. A couple of times, he barely got his back foot on the ground on the five-step mark, and people were all in his lap. You’re going to get him out (of there). The first one is the easiest; that’s a sprint – no stress on the O-line. You’re stressing on the tailback or tight end to block the edge, and the quarterback gets on the edge. He’s very good at it. They’re good at it. They ran it on 4th-and-1 in a big moment of the game.
“The second is a break that contains passing in the naked and boot in the play. So, get him the heck out of the pocket. That’s how you get stressors off the O-line.”
Day has hinted this week that Ohio State could ask Howard to use his legs more often on Saturday.
“When you’re running the ball downhill, and the Iowa game is a good example, we have over 200 yards rushing against them, and then all of sudden that opens up passing lanes on the perimeter and some of the weapon we have. That’s exactly what we’re looking for,” Day said Thursday. “We’re looking to get back on track here in this game.”
ATTITUDE REFLECTS LEADERSHIP. Former Ohio State fullback and linebacker Zach Boren made headlines earlier this week when he said the Buckeyes lack emotion and pure leadership in the locker room. (The Wednesday Skull Session had some of Boren’s comments in full via Austin Ward and THE Podcast.)
In an interview with Tim May of Letterman Row this week, current Ohio State captain Emeka Egbuka responded to those comments:
“I think our leadership is in great shape,” Egbuka said. “I think that my class of seniors, we’ve been through a lot in our three going on four years here at Ohio State, a lot of heartbreaking losses coming up one step short. We know what that feeling is. We’re trying to (have) no regrets this season. I think we have the guys in the right mind space to be able to lead this team.”
Egbuka then shared the mindset Ohio State has entering the Penn State game on Saturday.
“Going into Happy Valley, we know that the success of this team lies on the shoulders of the seniors and all the leaders that we have,” he said. “We (are) not ignorant to that. We know that going in. … I think we’re all laser-focused. We’ve been having great practices this week. You could just see it in the eyes of some of the guys when you walk around the Woody.”
Day echoed a similar sentiment on Thursday.
“We need our veteran plays to play veteran. We need our really good players to play really good in this game,” he said. “We’ve had a good week of prep. We’re looking forward to going and playing in (Beaver Stadium).”
COACHES WEIGH IN (PART 2). Much like Bruce Feldman and Ralph D. Russo of The Athletic, Adam Rittenberg of ESPN collected quotes from Big Ten (and Big 12) coaches this week and asked them to offer their opinions on Ohio State and Penn State – and much like Feldman and Russo, Rittenberg collected quotes about the battle of the trenches. In the interest of not being repetitive, I won’t share that stuff here, but I will share some other #content of interest involving Kelly and Jim Knowles:
On Kelly’s scheme, running the ball
The run game, which felt like a guarantee with both Henderson and Judkins available, must deliver against a Penn State defense that led the nation in fewest rushing yards allowed in 2023 and hasn't fallen far this year, ranking No. 8 nationally.
"We can't live with the way we ran the ball last week," Kelly said. "You're going have to win the rushing battle to win games in the Big Ten, so we certainly understand that. Penn State's defense is different than Nebraska's ... but we have to establish the run in this game."
Ohio State also must account for a Penn State defense talented enough to play the Buckeyes straight up. A coach who faced Ohio State earlier this fall noted that playing man-to-man defense is the best approach to limit busts.
"Chip does a good job with formations and shifts and motions and different personnel group things, so if you're trying to match all those patterns in zone, it makes it tough," the coach said. "But if you can play man and, 'You've got that guy, you've got that guy,' it's a little bit easier. That's where the line's weakness or strength comes in, because they're not in a situation where they can catch you misaligned.
"That's what Oregon did. They man-pressured a little bit and made Howard uncomfortable as the game went on."
On Knowles’ scheme, creating pressure
How Knowles matches the tone of the scheme with his personnel has come up at times during his mostly successful tenure. He came to Ohio State with a reputation for schematic creativity and havoc at Oklahoma State, which led the nation in sacks and ranked No. 2 nationally in tackles for loss per game in 2021, while also finishing No. 9 in points allowed.
"It was really exotic," a Big 12 offensive coordinator said of Knowles' Oklahoma State defenses. "They just played with an extra D-lineman, and we couldn't figure out where he lined up and why and how. We thought they just genuinely gave this guy the freedom to just line up and go wherever he wanted. We didn't know how to account for him in the run game or the pass game. So it made you bastardize all your rules, or you had to be really simple with what it was to account for him.
"I was certainly glad when [Knowles] left."
The question when Knowles came to Ohio State was whether he would maintain such a blend of defensive calls with more talented players. Could he achieve similar dominance while taking fewer risks and playing more straight up?
"I've dialed it back more than I ever have in my career to let the guys go out and make plays," Knowles told ESPN on Wednesday. "What we're finding in these matchup games is there are times when you have to turn it up and let them get after it."
Day said after the Oregon game of Ohio State's schematic choices, "We've got to make sure that we are changing up and making sure that it isn't just a four-man rush all the time."
Several sources brought up Georgia's innovative defensive scheme in its Oct. 19 takedown of Texas as a model for Ohio State. Georgia mixed up its pressures and flustered Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers, finishing with seven sacks, 10 tackles for loss and eight quarterback pressures. Ohio State has good pressure numbers — it is tied for 21st nationally in sacks per game and sixth in pressure rate — outside of the Oregon game, the only time it has faced truly comparable talent across the line of scrimmage.
The Knowles section mentions how Georgia's innovative defensive scheme in its win over Texas could provide Ohio State with the proper formula for taking down opponents in matchup games. I wonder if those "sources" read the Skull Session on Oct. 22 because I said the same exact thing!
SONG OF THE DAY. "CONFIDENCE" - OCEAN ALLEY.
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