***SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR PARTNER INFINIT NUTRITION FOR SPONSORING "A-DECK"! CHECK THEM OUT AND GET SOME HANDCRAFTED CUSTOM PROTEIN & RECOVERY MADE FOR YOU!
Welcome back for another edition of “A-Deck” at BuckeyeGrove.com, presented by Infinit Nutrition, where I’ll bring you thoughts, what I’m hearing, inside scoop, tidbits, and more for Ohio State recruiting and team coverage, every Wednesday.
Last week’s A-Deck took a look at the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl prep and the latest on a number of 2021 recruiting targets.
This week, I’ll take a deeper look at Ohio State’s loss to Clemson before moving on, the departure of another assistant coach, and the latest buzz on Jeff Hafley’s replacement.
LOOKING BACK
I don’t want to harp on this one for too long, as I know Saturday night still stings for everyone here, and there’s no reason to twist the knife in even more. What I will say on that front is that in speaking with sources close to the team, it’s stinging the coaching staff and players even more, especially Ryan Day, who knows they should have won that game.
That said, I did want to put a bow on the season and share some of my thoughts now that I’ve had half-a-week to process everything and actually watch the game over again (yes, for some reason I did that).
First, before we get into any football, let’s talk about “the calls”. Everyone wants to talk about the targeting on Shaun Wade and the overturn by the replay official that negated the scoop-and-score, but there were a few others we wanted to touch on, and that’s not even going into the multiple holds (mainly of receivers by Clemson DBs) that the zebras missed. But before we do that, I want to first say I am rarely one to complain about the officials or any of that. I think Ohio State absolutely could have and should have won the game despite some killer calls/non-calls, but I will say there are certain situations where calls can alter a game’s outcome and that certainly happened here.
With targeting, it is a rule I have been vocally against for a few years now. I am not against player protection at all, so let’s be clear there. I am against how this rule is defined, how it’s called, and what the consequences are if it is called. If you watched the LSU-Oklahoma game you saw a play with Brendan Radley-Hiles that was correctly called targeting and should be text book for how that should be enforced (15-yard penalty and ejection). If you then watched Wade’s hit, you would understand how in the world I cannot understand how those two plays are ruled and enforced the same. Yes, Wade did make crown-to-crown contact and by rule (key words) that is targeting. But I do think there has to be some wiggle room and leeway to the interpretation and enforcement of the rule. Wade’s hit was pure football, the way it should be played, in my opinion. Trevor Lawrence ducked to cover (he’s 4-5 inches taller than Wade) and because of that, Wade’s helmet hit his. There was nothing vicious about it. Playing as fast as they do, it was just an unfortunate consequence of Lawrence ducking. That absolutely should not be an ejection in any way, shape, or form. I’d argue that it shouldn’t be a penalty either, considering the circumstances of how targeting happened. If it’s not called, Ohio State has the ball back up 16-0 and feeling good. Instead, a pass interference by Wade’s replacement Amir Riep helps Clemson get down the field and score to make it 16-7 with plenty of time. Game-changing call. Game-changing ejection. This rule needs to be looked at by the NCAA in the off-season, the same way the NFL pass interference process was looked at after the Rams-Saints game last year.
I also do want to mention quickly that on the play where Wade was called for targeting, the refs had a huge miss in not calling illegal hands to the face on Chase Young. Number 73 on Clemson was legitimately holding his facemask (check the pictures, it’s real). If that’s called as it should have been, I believe it would have been off-setting penalties, and at worst the down is played again. Who knows what happens on that replayed down, but if nothing else on that play, that should have been the ruling.
One other call the refs blatantly missed was interference against KJ Hill, I believe on Ohio State’s first drive. Clearly got knocked down and would’ve been first and goal from the one, instead of having to kick a field goal.
The last call I will say was “missed” was a targeting on Dobbins on the play he sprained his ankle. Should have been reviewed and resulted in 15 yards and an ejection by rule. Check it out here.
Finally, the overturn. I’m not going to go into this much other than to say it’s the worst replay judgment I’ve ever seen in my life. The argument isn’t even whether it was a fumble or not. It’s about what was called on the field and there needing to be inconclusive evidence to overturn. There was nowhere near inconclusive evidence to overturn. That absolutely should have been six on the board for Ohio State and it would have shifted the momentum back to the Buckeyes, as was very much needed at that point in time. The replay official who made that ruling should be significantly suspended and maybe shouldn’t be allowed to officiate a playoff or conference title game again.
Now on to football. I said above that despite the refs not doing Ohio State any favors, they still should have and could have won the game and I truly believe that. There were so many moments in the game that if Ohio State had just made one play, the outcome of this game is different. Let’s just run down a few of them:
· Red-Zone efficiency. Four trips result in field goal, field goal, field goal, interception. That pretty much sums things up and that can’t happen against a team like Clemson. The worst part is that Ohio State had two easy touchdowns if Fields and Dobbins can execute that wheel route that was called back, and then if Dobbins just catches the screen pass. It should have been a field goal and two touchdowns on those red-zone trips early, which would have made it 24-0 instead of 16-0. Massive difference there.
· As for the fourth red-zone trip, it came on the last play of the game. Obviously, we all know now that Chris Olave incorrectly broke off the route because he thought Fields was scrambling. We don’t know for sure, but if Olave continues that route, it looks like a touchdown grab to me. People are saying Fields should have thrown to Dobbins or a tight end that was open, but I think he made the right throw. If Olave keeps running the post that’s a touchdown and OSU leads with just :30 left. Crazy the Buckeyes were that close to winning this one despite everything I will mention in this column.
· On the play where Clemson scored to make it 16-7 following the Wade targeting, it was 3rd and 2. Travis Etienne was stopped dead in his tracks, with Jordan Fuller getting the first hit, but he couldn’t finish the tackle and there was nobody there to clean it up (Tyler Friday over-ran the play I think). Instead of what should have been a two-yard loss, it ended up being a touchdown. Hold Etitenne there and Clemson probably puts 3 on the board, not 7. Big difference being up 16-3 vs. 16-7.
· The roughing the punter call. I’m not opposed to being aggressive and I almost expected the Buckeyes to go for the block in that situation, but you have to make sure you do not hit that punter and get a penalty. It’s so hard when you’re going fast, so in hindsight the better move was to definitely just take the ball at mid-field, but either way that penalty was an absolute killer. Once again, you can’t do those types of things to a team like Clemson, giving them free possessions and ultimately free points. Hindsight is 20/20 and I have no problem going for the block there, but again, that penalty was costly.
· Sacks, turnovers, and penalties overall killed Ohio State. Pass protection and Fields holding the ball have been an issue all year. They knew Clemson was going to blitz and try to take advantage of that. They did. Fields was sacked 4 times for 29 yards. Ohio State turned it over twice to none for Clemson. The Buckeyes had 8 penalties for 77 yards. Even with a yard advantage of 516 to 417, a first down advantage of 28 to 21, and a possession advantage of 33:27 to 26:33, losing the turnover battle, the penalty battle, and getting sacked a bunch to put you behind schedule is going to hurt big time.
· I’ll also add Fields needed to keep on the run more often. There were at least two times where if he kept it was big gains, if not touchdowns. Not sure if those were designed to be hand-offs no matter what or not, but if not, there were at least two or three incorrect reads I saw from Fields.
· As for Day, I think there were a couple moments where we saw questionable calls/decisions from the first-year head coach. Overall, he had this team prepared and ready to go, and I am absolutely not knocking him whatsoever, but a few times during the game there were probably moments he’d want back. Some of the first down red-zone play calls were odd to me. I thought they went away from the run too often early, especially down in the red zone. Would have like to see more zone-read and Dobbins runs down there. Going for the blocked punt, I think he’d obviously take that one back given the result, and while I was for the strategy, I understand the critcism. Some are questioning going for two when they took a 22-21 lead. I was surprised he didn’t although with almost a full quarter left, I understand the move---it actually ended up almost helping Ohio State in a way, as if they score at the end, they can go up 30-29 instead of just being able to tie (had they missed the conversion). It obviously could have hurt them though had Clemson only gotten a field goal and went up 24-23, when it could have been a tie game (had they converted), but it ultimately didn’t play into the game’s final result, other than possibly altering the next point: The call to punt before Clemson’s last touchdown. I thought it was the right one. The defense was playing so well all night, so he handed the game over to them and made Clemson go down the field to try and win with a bad kicker. I think if you’re up 24-21 maybe you do go for it, but I think Day did the right thing only up 2, giving his defense as many yards as he could. Obviously, he will second guess himself all year for not going for that, as if he gets it they probably can run the clock out and win. But that’s certainly a risk, and I think he made the right call from a percentage standpoint.
· Finally, the defense. They played so well all night. But that last drive, they completely crapped the bed. Again, we talk about one play, one drive being the difference. Not saying other plays couldn’t have been made, but they had an opportunity to close it out and missed on it.
Overall, I don’t want this to be a completely negative outlook. It was an incredible season and so much fun to watch. As I wrote in last week’s A-Deck, the team was well-prepared and had a great game plan, they just didn’t execute at times when they needed to (Clemson did) and they caught some bad breaks, a couple of which weren’t really their fault. Again, they were one broken route away from winning that game despite everything that went against them.
It won’t take the sting away any, but I do think the Buckeyes will be back. Their future is incredibly bright under Ryan Day and going through this experience will make them that much more ready for this game in possibly a year’s time.
WRAPPING UP YURCICH
As you probably know by now, Ohio State passing game coordinator/quarterbacks coach Mike Yurcich has accepted the offensive coordinator job at Texas. We reported earlier this week that Corey Dennis will fill his spot on the staff as quarterbacks coach, but are still awaiting confirmation from the program/university on that move.
I commented plenty on the above-linked thread about Dennis but wanted to take some time to talk about Yurcich. There are many stories coming from all different sides (Texas sites saying Day “begged Yurcich to come back”; Ohio State sites saying “he was pushed out”), so I just wanted to provide some of what I know.
I can say that before the season, right before camp, I had one of my best sources tell me that Yurcich basically was rubbing some staff members the wrong way and that the source was a bit concerned about the chemistry heading into the year. Clearly it didn’t seem to have much of an impact on how the season went, so that was good, but I can say sources indicate that the relationship between Yurcich and other staff members didn’t improve significantly. Does this mean that Yurcich was a bad coach? Definitely not---I’m sure many of you have people in your workplaces that don’t necessarily get along with everyone or are more difficult to work with, but it doesn’t make them “bad workers”. It does mean though that there just wasn’t a personality fit that you’d hope for in meshing with the rest of the staff.
As for recruiting, Yurcich never really had territory responsibilities, and it seemed he was really only responsible for recruiting quarterbacks. On that end, this is not a huge loss, as Jack Miller and CJ Stroud are locked in, and I can confirm that Kyle McCord is locked in as long as Day is the head coach. As long as Day is around, recruiting quarterbacks won’t be an issue, that’s for sure, so if OSU was going to lose a staff member, this was the one to lose. Back to Yurcich’s recruiting efforts, there was a report by another site that lack of communication between he and Stroud almost cost the Buckeyes their second QB in the class. I can’t confirm that 100-percent, but I do know that a couple different sources told me basically the same thing in that Stroud coming to Ohio State was a Day thing and Yurcich “didn’t do much to help that cause”, as one of the sources put it.
Finally, on the field, this isn’t a huge loss there as Day is the play caller and has a heavy hand in coaching quarterbacks, not to mention that Kevin Wilson has a pretty significant say in ground game strategy. I do think Yurcich being basically third on the chain of offensive command (Day-Wilson-Yurcich) isn’t something he hoped for, and a source told me they thought he wanted a greater say in offensive strategy and play calling. I can’t blame the guy for wanting that, and he’ll certainly get it in Austin.
Long story short, I think this was just a round peg in a square hole situation all around. Personality-wise, Yurcich just didn’t seem to fit in. From a recruiting standpoint he wasn’t bringing anything that made Ohio State feel they had to keep him. And on the field, Yurcich wanted more responsibility, while OSU felt comfortable with how they have things rolling.
Do I think Day pushed out Yurcich? I’m not ready to go that far at all and don’t have that from any solid sources. But I will say I don’t think he fought very hard, if at all, to keep him when approached about the opportunity of Texas. And I think he knew he had a guy waiting in Dennis who he felt was capable of coaching up the QBs under his tutelage, would cost less (more money for veteran staff raises and Hafley’s replacement), and would want to grow in that role.
REPLACING HAFLEY
Speaking of, Ohio State still also needs to replace co-defensive coordinator/secondary coach Jeff Hafley. There hasn’t been much said about the situation, but if you know anything about coaching searches, this sure seems like a situation where OSU’s top candidate is still coaching with his current team, which is why things have been very quiet here.
The initial buzz was that Day wanted a NFL guy and I definitely believe that to be true. The two names I heard a ton were Kerry Coombs and Jonathan Gannon.
From what I’m hearing, Gannon (currently with the Colts) and Josh McDaniels are very good friends, and it seems Gannon would be a candidate to join McDaniels’ staff should he land a head coaching job.
As for Coombs, he is with the Titans who play the Patriots in the Wild Card round this coming weekend, and nothing can move until Tennessee is eliminated from the playoffs. I don’t have anything firm and solid (nowhere near what I have re: Dennis replacing Yurcich), but all of the buzz I am currently hearing points to a reunion between the energetic assistant as the Buckeyes, likely just backfilling Hafley directly as co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach.
Again, I’m not 100-percent on that, and we’ll see how things shake out, but at this point I’d be somewhat surprised if Coombs wasn’t the guy, unless a last minute change of heart has him sticking in the NFL.
