Ohio State vs Army Recap

FIVE THINGS: GOOD KNIGHT

Eleven Warriors
By Chris Lauderback

BARRETT FINDS FLOW THANKS TO R-P-O

Kevin Wilson fell on the sword last Wednesday saying he was to blame for Ohio State's offensive woes against Indiana and Oklahoma, basically noting he failed to establish a rhythm and put his players, Barrett specifically, in the best position to succeed. 

Obviously realizing one of Barrett's biggest strengths is making the correct read on run-pass option plays, Wilson relied heavily on such calls and Barrett responded in spades. 

Barrett repeatedly made the right decision on run calls helping both he and Dobbins find space and was also excellent in leading receivers on the quick, wide throws off run fakes, helping spring decent yards after catch. 

With Barrett showing improved confidence – and again, yes this was Army – he hit on 85% of the short throws, with a high percentage of those coming on RPOs. 

The deeper stuff was a different story – more on that in a bit – but with Barrett at the controls the offense scored on six of eight possessions with five touchdowns, chewing up 586 yards. 

THE ALBINO RHINO

Affectionately known to his teammates (or at least one) as the Albino Rhino, reserve middle linebacker Tuf Borland came off the bench in place of an injured Chris Worley and led the Buckeyes with 12 tackles while adding a TFL and a quarterback hurry. 

Naturally, playing the mike spot against a run heavy team, opportunities were endless but to his credit, Borland consistently carried out his assignment as Worley looked on with a sprained foot. 

Who knows if Borland can defend the pass but considering what we've seen from the starting linebackers in coverage, the fact I don't think Dante Booker played a snap today and Worley is dinged, the redshirt freshman likely earned himself some playing time next weekend. 

Even if he fades back into the sidelines, hats off to the Albino Rhino for making the most of his opportunity in a spirited effort. 

DEUCE IS LOOSE

As a guy in the preseason who felt like Mike Weber could make a run at 1,400 yards, I was hesitant to put the injured back with a 1,000-yard season under his belt out to pasture.

I took that stance because (1) I felt like people were falling in love with something they hadn't even seen with their own eyes yet, (2) it's not always wise to heap a ton of praise and therefore pressure on a true freshman, and (3) I hate to see any athlete lose a starting spot due to injury. 

That said, as it turns out, Weber didn't lose his starting spot due to injury. He lost it because J.K. Dobbins is far and away the best running back on the team. 

Dobbins added to his freshman resume yesterday with 172 rushing yards on 13.2 yards per carry, while scoring two touchdowns and playing a crucial role in another scoring drive. 

Opening the game with possession, Ohio State marched 75 yards in eight plays to take a quick 7-0 lead. Dobbins tallied 45 of those yards including a 36-yard jaunt putting OSU in the red zone. 

Dobbins would cap the following possession with a 2-yard plunge to make it 14-0 but saved his best work for Ohio State's first possession of the second half. Leading 17-7, Dobbins took a 1st down carry 22 yards and followed that up with a 52-yard sprint to paydirt (I see you with that seal, Jamarco) making it 24-7, good guys. 

Through three games, Dobbins is averaging 141.7 rush yards per game on 7.7 per carry. Looking at the raw totals, he's gained 426 yards and lost one, for a net of 425. 

SAFETY IN NUMBERS

How about senior safety Erick Smith yesterday? 

Having battled injuries for most of his career only to battle Jordan Fuller for snaps at safety this season, Smith turned in a career-high nine stops with two pass breakups including two notable plays in which he saved touchdowns. 

The fist instance came as fellow safety Damon Webb bit hard on a run fake and was therefore scorched in coverage as Army attempted a rare pass. The pass was even more shocking as it came on 1st down with Kell Walker getting at least three yards past Webb. Just in time, Smith raced over from the opposite side of the field to break up and nearly pick off the Ahmad Bradshaw throw. It should be noted Army went on to score a touchdown but Smith made a hell of an effort. 

Later, following a Dobbins touchdown that put the Buckeyes in front 24-7, Smith saved a touchdown on the ensuing kickoff. Initially, things were looking up as the kick landed in the corner at the 1-yard line but quickly went south as Walker sprinted to the opposite side of the field and broke contain. Darting upfield, it looked like Walker would be long gone before Smith fought off a block and had just enough to knock Walker off his balance, stopping what was likely to be a 99-yard kickoff return for six. 

On the ensuing drive, Smith nearly picked off Bradshaw on a 1st-and-10 play as he rotated over to help Denzel Ward in coverage. 

Overall, it was an outstanding day for a guy who is easy to root for, and looked to have his fair share of struggles against Indiana and Oklahoma. 

DEEP TROUBLES

Though J.T. Barrett and his receivers amassed 270 passing yards and two touchdowns, effectiveness throwing down the field remained an issue. 

With the Buckeyes having so much success in the short, quick passing game off RPOs, I counted only six attempts to throw the ball more than 20 yards down the field. The results were, at best, mixed: 

•  1H, Poss 2: Barrett badly overshot Parris Campbell who had a couple steps on his defender as he streaked down the field on a deep post route. The play wasn't helped by Isaiah Prince's only major turnstile of the day but the pass was not good. 
•  1H, Poss 3: Barrett hit Terry McLaurin in the hands on a go route down the right sideline but solid coverage ensured the pass fell incomplete. In my estimation, Barrett threw a good ball. 
•  1H, Poss 3: Three plays later, Barrett threw well over the head of Austin Mack as Mack was leveled by a defensive back. Pass Interference looked to be in play but most likely wasn't called because Barrett's pass was far too high to be caught. 
•  1H, Poss 3: On the next snap, Barrett missed badly as he again attempted to connect with Mack on about a 20-yard curl. The pass was thrown far too inside and it didn't appear as though Mack did anything incorrect with his route.  
•  2H, Poss 2: Wide open in the middle of the field, Barrett found tight end Marcus Baugh for a 31-yard gain. The pass was thrown behind Baugh who made a solid but not spectacular catch. 
•  2H, Poss 2: On the next snap, Barrett hit McLaurin in stride for a 20-yard touchdown down the right side of the field. McLaurin was wide open and Barrett hit him right in the numbers with a crisp and decisive toss.

Overall, Barrett was 2 of 6 on those deeper throws for 51 yards with one of the incompletions still looking like a pretty good throw.

10 Things we Learned from Win Over Army

by Tony Gerdeman
theozone.net

1. Parris Campbell needs the ball more.

We got a pretty good look in this game at what Parris Campbell can do once he secures the football in his hands. He caught six passes, the bulk of which were screen passes, and picked up between 8-11 yards on every catch. He also had a 59-yard touchdown run that was called back due to a holding call. His lone kickoff return went for 40 yards. He finished with 120 all-purpose yards, but more than that, he showed an explosion that any team would love to have. The key moving forward will be to continue putting him in a position to make plays, which is what Kevin Wilson talked about for the entire offense last week.

2. J.K. Dobbins can’t have the ball enough.

J.K. Dobbins now has 55 carries for 425 yards this season, which is incredibly impressive for a true freshman. After 29 carries in his debut, however, he has only carried the ball 26 times (for 244 yards) since. Urban Meyer called him a perfect running back after the game, and it’s time to lean on him even more. They won’t need to do that against UNLV, but Dobbins has shown that he is special and a difference maker. He has only been tackled for a loss once this season, and only been stopped for no gain four times. To contrast that, he leads the Big Ten with six carries of 20+ yards. After a slow start against Indiana, 12 of Dobbins’ last 46 carries have gone for more than 10 yards. Ten of the carries that didn’t go 10 yards were in short-yardage situations when the defense was expecting a run, and two others were touchdown runs from inside the 10-yard line. Just Keep feeding Dobbins.

3. It’s okay to enjoy these games.

You don’t have to watch the game and extrapolate every play to its respective effectiveness against Penn State or Michigan or Alabama. It’s okay to enjoy the moment and cheer for a guy breaking a tackle on a screen pass and picking up a first down. It’s okay to to be happy to see Ohio State’s passing game put up over 300 yards of offense without dismissing the way it was done. It’s okay to have a good time and enjoy the moment. If you’re just trying to protect yourself from being hurt again, I get that, but I promise you that the Buckeyes aren’t trying to hurt you on purpose.

4. A screen-based offense won’t work in the long run…

That all being said, a screen-based offense isn’t going to work against Alabama. Teams have had some success with it against Michigan, however, but it is not the answer to a national title. But I don’t need to tell you that.

5. …But it will make defenses think.

There is a reason that Kevin Wilson and Urban Meyer want to stretch the defense east and west. The more you stretch a defense horizontally, the softer it gets vertically against the run or the pass. When a columnist asked Meyer after the game why they didn’t just run the ball every time, Meyer explained that the reason they look so good running the ball up the middle is because the defense also has to deal with the wide receiver screens out wide. Terry McLaurin’s touchdown reception came from a screen look, and the defense bit on it, freeing up McLaurin down the field. If a defense is going to play off, or with poor numbers out wide, then the Buckeyes will take those easy yards every time. Buckeye fans didn’t have a problem with how effective it was when Sammy Watkins was doing it, after all.

6. Tuf Borland can play.

Earlier in the week, Tuf Borland was told to expect some time at middle linebacker on Saturday, and he sure got it. He led the team with 12 tackles — 11 of which came in the second half. At one point in the third quarter he was in on four straight tackles, and during Army’s first drive of the fourth quarter, he was in on five tackles in a six-play span. Playing middle linebacker against a triple option team is much, much different than playing the middle against any other kind of offense. There wasn’t much pass defense to worry about, so we’ve only seen a fraction of what Borland can do. Based on what we have seen — and the fact that his coaches wanted him on the field more, however, it would seem to bode well for other aspects of his game.

7. The linebackers still need to get better.

Jerome Baker hasn’t been what he was supposed to be this season, and the fact that the Buckeyes opted to go with three safeties instead of three linebackers against Army’s option offense is pretty telling. There is no doubt that the defense wanted to get more speed on the field. They did the same thing against Navy in 2014, but back then they simply put Chris Worley into the starting lineup instead of Joshua Perry. Perry still played plenty, however, and finished second on the team with nine tackles in that game. The Buckeyes have played four linebackers so far this season — Baker, Worley, Dante Booker, and Malik Harrison. On Saturday, Worley, Booker, and Harrison spent most of the game on the sideline watching Borland and Baker. If the staff was completely comfortable with them, you’d think they would have seen more time.

8. The safeties are still a concern.

Getting beaten a time or two on the play-action against the triple-option is going to happen to safeties, but it’s concerning when it happens to both of your senior safeties. Fortunately, on the play where Webb was beaten, Smith was there to help him out. On the play where Smith was beaten, the quarterback didn’t look his way. I did like the physicality shown by everyone. This was not a good game to judge their pass defense, but there are still concerns here.

9. The kickoff coverage has to get much better.

I am a firm believe in Urban Meyer’s kickoff strategy, and like anything else, it requires execution in order to work optimally. The Buckeyes kicked off seven times on Saturday, but only three times did the Black Knights have to start inside the 25-yard line. The best kick off the day pinned Army’s returner in the corner on the 1-yard line, but he ran about 50 yards horizontally before finally gaining the edge and turning it upfield for a 43-yard return. That kickoff could have been a bright spot, but it was most certainly a low light. The kickoff that went out of bounds came from walk-on Bryan Kristan. Blake Haubeil’s kicks, meanwhile, landed at the 6, 2, 10, 1, 3, and following the 43-yarder, they had him kick it into the end zone for a touchback. That 43-yard return was the only return of a kick inside the 10 that made it past the 20-yard line. As long as the Buckeyes cover better, Haubeil is showing that he has some nice touch. He still needs to get more consistent, but he will.

10. There is no quarterback controversy.

Dwayne Haskins came into the game in the fourth quarter and showed the downfield arm that we all knew he had. Or, more accurately, he looked very comfortable completing four passes that traveled 10, 9, 7, and 9 yards “downfield” against an Army defense that had already given up 270 yards passing. I’m not here to debate who has the better arm, because it isn’t a debate. Haskins can make throws that J.T. Barrett cannot, but the only thing we learned about Dwayne Haskins is that he can complete short passes. I want to see more from him too, and I think he’d be just fine in this offense, but I think some people need to slow down. Ohio State is going to need to go downfield in order to win anything of relevance this season, and I’m not sure they can get that from Barrett, but when some people get upset because of the number of short passes that Barrett completes, and then gush over Haskins for doing the same exact thing, it might be time for some self evaluation.