Before the game on Saturday, I wrote about my desires for the Buckeyes to open things up against an overmatched Maryland Terrapin team. Head coach Ryan Day did accommodate my requests by sitting every starter with anything worse than a hangnail and therefore allowing Buckeyes normally deeper down the depth chart to get meaningful reps before the incredibly competitive back half of the season gets started. I also was hoping to see a bit more razzle dazzle from the play calling in all three phases
of the game, but given the outer bands of Hurricane Isaias dumping rain on The Horseshoe throughout the game, I’m not too worried about the overly ground-focused attack today.
Perhaps due to all of the starters who were out and/or the rain, the first quarter was sloppier than we have seen from the Buckeyes in the past few weeks. Nonetheless, Ohio State seemed to tighten most aspects of their play up in the second quarter, leading to a commanding 45-16 victory. Jeremiah Smith turned in another impressive but statistically understated performance, going for 93 yards and 2 touchdowns on 4 receptions, including an otherworldly one-handed grab on a third down.
Despite the sizable victory, there were a number of things that the coaching staff probably aren’t going to love seeing in the Sunday film session. The Buckeyes’ pass protection continued to struggle (albeit yet again with a reconfigured line); Julian Sayin put the ball on the ground twice (losing one fumble) and threw a pick-six; the linebackers seemed to miss more run fits than I was comfortable with; and… the penalties… all of the penalties. OSU was flagged eight times for 65 yards, mostly in the first half. Everything from defensive delay of game to offsides on a kickoff to illegal hands to the face and more.
But, you know what? I’m kind of ok with all of that. Obviously, I would have preferred a perfectly executed game in which the Buckeyes marched up and down the field each time they had the ball, the defense held the Terps to a three-and-out on every drive, and we saw something that rewrote the narrative about Buckeye special teams. But, for a variety of reasons, that just wasn’t in the cards for this one, meaning that there will be plenty for the coaching staff to emphasize in the coming week.
Next Saturday, the Buckeyes will be in Bloomington to take on the defending national champion Indiana Hoosiers, who survived in Lincoln, 20-17, thanks to the latest installment of Matt Rhule’s Nebraska Cornhuskers Matt-Rhuleing. So, like the Buckeyes, IU is coming into the game with plenty of things to work on.
Fortunately, the majority of the most egregious offenses that the Buckeyes committed against Maryland were of the focus variety. That’s not to say that the offensive line doesn’t have legitimate issues that need to be addressed or that there aren’t personnel questions that still need to be answered, but most of Saturday’s mistakes were the types of things that can (and should) be cleaned up with better concentration, sharper execution, and a renewed emphasis on fundamentals.
And, as much as I would have enjoyed watching Ohio State put together four quarters of beautiful, mistake-free football, opening up the playbook and getting a ton of guys in, I’m beginning to think that Day and his staff might actually have gotten more out of the occasionally maddening version of the Buckeyes that we saw on Saturday.
I mean, think about it. If Ohio State had gone out and scored touchdowns on its first seven possessions, held Maryland to 87 yards of total offense, and generally treated the Terps like the glorified tackling dummies that we expected them to be, what would the coaching staff (and the rest of us) have had to complain about this week? Sure, they (and we) would have found something, because that’s what coaches and fans do, but there is only so much mileage you can get out of telling a bunch of 18- to 23-year-olds that they need to practice harder because Indiana is really, really good.
Now, however, Day, Arthur Smith, Matt Patricia, and the rest of the staff have an entire game’s worth of ammunition to take into the Woody Hayes Athletic Center this week. They can point to the turnovers, the missed assignments, and the seemingly endless parade of flags and explain precisely how each of those mistakes could cost them a game against an opponent that isn’t quite so overmatched.
And, while I certainly don’t claim to know what goes through the minds of these particular players, I have to imagine that being forced to watch yourself screw something up in front of 100,000 people is a more effective teaching tool than listening to your position coach explain why you shouldn’t do it in the first place.
The reality is that the Buckeyes were talented enough to get away with an awful lot on Saturday. Ohio State could afford to give away possessions, extend drives with penalties, and generally make things more difficult for themselves than they had any reason to be because, even on a day when the Buckeyes were far from their best, the Terps were never particularly well-positioned to make them pay for it.
That luxury is about to disappear. Even if Indiana looked considerably less formidable against Nebraska than it has at other points in the last two seasons, I don’t think anyone in Columbus should be particularly interested in testing how many extra opportunities Curt Cignetti’s team needs to steal a win.
I’ve said throughout the season that the Buckeyes don’t need to be perfect right now; they just need to keep getting better. And while I would have preferred that improvement to come in the form of an aesthetically pleasing, ruthlessly efficient dismantling of Maryland, I am willing to entertain the possibility that a win featuring enough mistakes to make Day blow a blood vessel might do more for this team in the long run.
So, no, I’m not going to pretend that I enjoyed watching Sayin give away the football or watching the officials reach for their flags seemingly every other play. And I certainly won’t be particularly forgiving if we see those same mistakes next weekend. But if an aggravating afternoon against Maryland is what it takes to get everyone in scarlet and gray a little more locked in before the trip to Bloomington, I can live with that.
I wanted the Buckeyes to put on a show this weekend. Instead, they gave their coaches plenty to show them in the film room. And with what’s waiting for them in Bloomington next weekend, that might end up being considerably more valuable.
