After Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin took a sack on fourth down during the second quarter against Kent State, he found Brandon Inniss on the sideline.
Sayin wanted to own up to a mistake.
“I missed you,” Inniss recalled him saying. “It was my fault.”
Inniss had lined up as the Buckeyes’ slot receiver and found a soft spot in the middle of the Golden Flashes’ zone coverage, leaving him open in the end zone.
But Sayin seemed to stare down wide receiver Jeremiah Smith on the right side, and by the time he began moving through his progressions, the pressure in the pocket had caved in. Defensive lineman Aiden Burgess dove at his feet to pull him down to the Ohio Stadium turf.
“There's times when you're open,” Inniss said, “but the quarterback has
a lot of things on his plate.”
While the turnover on downs did little harm to the Buckeyes as they ended their nonconference schedule with a 59-3 win on Sept. 19, it revealed the chemistry between Sayin and the receivers beyond Smith remains a work in progress.
They were not always in sync. Sayin also missed freshman Brock Boyd in the end zone before he was sacked. But they still showed more of a rapport than in the previous week’s loss at Texas, when Sayin completed only two passes to receivers outside of Smith, leaning on the superstar for nearly half of his connections against the Longhorns.
As Sayin went 18 of 22 for 241 yards and two touchdowns against Kent State, he spread 10 completions among four additional receivers — Devin McCuin, Brock Boyd, Phillip Bell and Inniss — for 144 yards and one touchdown.
Inniss, who had four catches for 78 yards and a touchdown, was nearly as productive as Smith, who finished with five receptions for 85 yards.
“That’s something that we wanted to do,” Inniss said, “to get a lot of guys involved, and we did.”
The emphasis was apparent from the Buckeyes’ opening series, when Sayin’s first passes went to Inniss, finding him on an out route, then in the flats, for gains of 9 and 8 yards. He connected with McCuin on throws of 7 and 22 yards on their following possession.
It stood in contrast to the previous week at Texas when the Buckeyes leaned on Smith from the onset in the top-five matchup between blue-bloods.
“This was a little more of a full-field progression game,” Buckeyes coach Ryan Day said. “I thought overall the ball came out on time. There's still some things in there that we're going to look at that we've got to get better from: Eyes, feet, timing. I thought overall it was solid. It was good to get other guys involved.”
Sayin and Inniss even ended on a high note with a 49-yard touchdown as time expired just before halftime.
It was a situation in which the Buckeyes were at midfield when Sayin heaved a deep pass that Inniss pulled down in the end zone.
Inniss positioned himself at the front of the end zone to corral the first Hail Mary of his career.
“It felt great,” Inniss said.
Joey Kaufman covers Ohio State football for The Columbus Dispatch. Email him at jkaufman@dispatch.com and follow him on @joeyrkaufman on X.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Julian Sayin still building chemistry with Ohio State WRs after Kent State win
