Oh boy, not much good to say about this one. An effort which I felt was a worse two-way effort than the Clemson game honestly.
I've debated about starting in on the offense or defense first. Everyone was so blinded by their readiness coming into the season to pounce on the offense that the defense was mostly left off the hook by the fan base last night. But I will appease everyone and start exactly where everyone wants me to start, but damn it you better read down to the defensive part because those guys weren't any better last night.
- All of the knocks on J.T. were on full display last night. Hesitant as both as a passer and runner. Missed some easy throws, but more importantly either refused to try and make the difficult ones or waited so long for the difficult throw to *look* easy that it completely threw the timing off. I don't necessarily think there are receivers running wide open out there on every snap, but here we are again talking about how the starting quarterback can't wait for his receiver to break so wide open that everybody in the stadium can tell how open he is, you have to anticipate and throw on time.
- The tentativeness he is showing in the running game is arguably as concerning. If he's not going to commit to being a runner, this offense is in trouble.
- I thought the offensive line played a solid game. Eagerly awaiting Ross Fulton's analysis and I'll also be curious to see if the O-Line gets any credit at all from Meyer on Monday (my guess is they won't, nobody is getting anything nice said about them after last night in my opinion). People were so ready to get at Isaiah Prince's throat. He had the one bad play against a really good pass rusher where he was beat cleanly. The second sack he "allowed" was on Barrett. The mental clock has to go off at some point, you can't be stationary in the pocket that long. Holes were certainly there in the running game.
Now lets talk about the many things that can't be laid at J.T.'s feet....
- The drops and the seeming lack of ability to adjust to the ball when its in the air on the vertical routes by this group of receivers continues to concern me. The ball to McLaurin went through his arms. Yes the defender got a hand up which probably blocked out the ball from his vision for a split second, but we seem to see this every week from someone in this room of receivers, a deep ball placed well and dropped. I obviously haven't been at practice the last couple of weeks, but it has to be Grime Time here at some point if the knee is healthy. Can't continually leave touchdowns on the field in the vertical passing game and expect things to change without making a change in personnel.
- But the single biggest mistake made last night, was by the coaching staff. It was unfathomable to me that after completely forgetting about the running game in the first half against Clemson, that the very next big game could see the same thing happen, but worse. Now you have two very good running backs at your disposal, both were gaining chunk yardage on the ground in their limited opportunities, and you completely abandoned them. You had in-game evidence that your two running backs and your offensive line were able to gash this Oklahoma defense and that evidence was ignored. Like I said above, unfathomable to me that this could happen so soon after the Clemson game.
- For whatever reason, this group just won't become the offense it is supposed to be. I don't know if it is for recruiting reasons and that there is concern about recruiting QBs and WRs if the offense doesn't have a little more sex appeal (for lack of a better term) or if its a stubbornness to prove doubters wrong about throwing the football, but this is a power-running football team. That is what this team has to be. Dobbins and Weber should be leading the team in touches each and every week and should be combining for 35+ carries each and every week. At some point doing what you do best has to take priority on offense.
The defense is NOT getting off the hook here and I'm shocked so many were willing to do so last night as I heard about it loud and clear from many on Twitter.
- Greg Schiano is a great defensive coach, but his defense got absolutely whipped last night. Beautiful game plan from Lincoln Riley that was executed to near perfection by Baker Mayfield with a group of backs and receivers that Ohio State probably wouldn't have even recruited coming out of high school (minus top target Mark Andrews who didn't even play most of the game after leaving with an injury).
- I've heard the excuses on Twitter and I found most of them laughable, sorry.
- Claiming "fatigue" because of the offense's inability to sustain drives in the first half is such an empty and lazy argument. The Ohio State defense, didn't force a single punt in the first half, not a single one. They were that gassed that soon? Get yourselves off the field. They forced one punt the entire game, aided largely by a 15-yard penalty and nearly allowed Oklahoma to convert on a 2nd and 30.
- Claiming fatigue on a defense that has boasted about its depth all off-season? That says it can confidently rotate 10 defensive linemen? That rotates three corners and three safeties? That cross trains all of its linebackers and was rotating two of them pretty evenly at the SAM? Come on.
- Then the next thing was the "turnovers" the defense "forced" in the first half. There is quite a difference between forcing something and being gifted something. The defense was gifted a fumble on the screen pass and the defense was gifted a missed field goal when the center rolled the snap back to the holder. Yes it got off the field on a 4th and short, after it had let Oklahoma drive the field. Worley's FF was a nice play, after the defense had allowed the offense to drive the field. Oklahoma started all of its first half drives inside its own 30, two inside its own 15, it moved the ball at will on just about all of those drives.
- Once you take the silly fatigue excuse out of play, there was no defending the second half effort. The Ohio State offense, for all of its warts, scored on its first two drives to open the half. The defense, which has to be the rock of this team, had a chance to stabilize things right then and there and give the team a boost. Instead, it gave up touchdowns on two of Oklahoma's first three drives of the second half. Including allowing Oklahoma to march right down the field and tie it at 10 right as the offense found some momentum and got things going.
- The front four needed to be better but it wasn't a bad effort. Bosa made some plays, Dre'Mont Jones made some plays and I thought Sam Hubbard had a good game. The linebackers were exploited big-time on the RPO's. All of them. All of them at one point (or multiple points) were victimized on those. Tough night for Malik Harrison, he'll need to use this as a learning experience, so much physical talent but so little experience.
- I said after last week I needed to see a larger sample size on the DB's. I'm now more concerned. A lot of guys were out of position last night. It is never a good thing to routinely see defensive backs SPRINTING with their backs turned to the play. Assignments were being blown out there.
- Not going to single anyone out here, though it's probably not hard to figure out, but there has been A LOT of chatter behind the scenes on these DB's being three-and-done, that this would be their last year in Columbus and that Ohio State would have to replenish its cornerbacks room again this off-season.
Darron Lee earned the right to be a three-and-done, Joey Bosa and Zeke Elliott and Eli Apple and Marshon Lattimore and Malik Hooker went out on the field and earned the right to be a three-and-done. Perhaps a little less talking about/focusing on the NFL dreams and a little more producing on the college football field is in order there. Just saying.
The silver lining? It's hard to see, but it is there in some fashion. This was, in theory, the right game for Ohio State to lose this season. As I said last night, it is putting the cart way before the horse, to put it mildly, when discussing this team running the table the rest of the way, but the playoff hopes weren't extinguished last night. Now this team is going to have to get a hell of a lot better to start talking about running the table, but the season is not lost at this point.
There are a lot of good coaches over there inside the Woody and some very talented athletes and they can get this figured out, but I think everyone over there is going to have to re-evaluate what they're doing and take some blame for this one, because this was a total team loss from top to bottom.
I've debated about starting in on the offense or defense first. Everyone was so blinded by their readiness coming into the season to pounce on the offense that the defense was mostly left off the hook by the fan base last night. But I will appease everyone and start exactly where everyone wants me to start, but damn it you better read down to the defensive part because those guys weren't any better last night.
- All of the knocks on J.T. were on full display last night. Hesitant as both as a passer and runner. Missed some easy throws, but more importantly either refused to try and make the difficult ones or waited so long for the difficult throw to *look* easy that it completely threw the timing off. I don't necessarily think there are receivers running wide open out there on every snap, but here we are again talking about how the starting quarterback can't wait for his receiver to break so wide open that everybody in the stadium can tell how open he is, you have to anticipate and throw on time.
- The tentativeness he is showing in the running game is arguably as concerning. If he's not going to commit to being a runner, this offense is in trouble.
- I thought the offensive line played a solid game. Eagerly awaiting Ross Fulton's analysis and I'll also be curious to see if the O-Line gets any credit at all from Meyer on Monday (my guess is they won't, nobody is getting anything nice said about them after last night in my opinion). People were so ready to get at Isaiah Prince's throat. He had the one bad play against a really good pass rusher where he was beat cleanly. The second sack he "allowed" was on Barrett. The mental clock has to go off at some point, you can't be stationary in the pocket that long. Holes were certainly there in the running game.
Now lets talk about the many things that can't be laid at J.T.'s feet....
- The drops and the seeming lack of ability to adjust to the ball when its in the air on the vertical routes by this group of receivers continues to concern me. The ball to McLaurin went through his arms. Yes the defender got a hand up which probably blocked out the ball from his vision for a split second, but we seem to see this every week from someone in this room of receivers, a deep ball placed well and dropped. I obviously haven't been at practice the last couple of weeks, but it has to be Grime Time here at some point if the knee is healthy. Can't continually leave touchdowns on the field in the vertical passing game and expect things to change without making a change in personnel.
- But the single biggest mistake made last night, was by the coaching staff. It was unfathomable to me that after completely forgetting about the running game in the first half against Clemson, that the very next big game could see the same thing happen, but worse. Now you have two very good running backs at your disposal, both were gaining chunk yardage on the ground in their limited opportunities, and you completely abandoned them. You had in-game evidence that your two running backs and your offensive line were able to gash this Oklahoma defense and that evidence was ignored. Like I said above, unfathomable to me that this could happen so soon after the Clemson game.
- For whatever reason, this group just won't become the offense it is supposed to be. I don't know if it is for recruiting reasons and that there is concern about recruiting QBs and WRs if the offense doesn't have a little more sex appeal (for lack of a better term) or if its a stubbornness to prove doubters wrong about throwing the football, but this is a power-running football team. That is what this team has to be. Dobbins and Weber should be leading the team in touches each and every week and should be combining for 35+ carries each and every week. At some point doing what you do best has to take priority on offense.
The defense is NOT getting off the hook here and I'm shocked so many were willing to do so last night as I heard about it loud and clear from many on Twitter.
- Greg Schiano is a great defensive coach, but his defense got absolutely whipped last night. Beautiful game plan from Lincoln Riley that was executed to near perfection by Baker Mayfield with a group of backs and receivers that Ohio State probably wouldn't have even recruited coming out of high school (minus top target Mark Andrews who didn't even play most of the game after leaving with an injury).
- I've heard the excuses on Twitter and I found most of them laughable, sorry.
- Claiming "fatigue" because of the offense's inability to sustain drives in the first half is such an empty and lazy argument. The Ohio State defense, didn't force a single punt in the first half, not a single one. They were that gassed that soon? Get yourselves off the field. They forced one punt the entire game, aided largely by a 15-yard penalty and nearly allowed Oklahoma to convert on a 2nd and 30.
- Claiming fatigue on a defense that has boasted about its depth all off-season? That says it can confidently rotate 10 defensive linemen? That rotates three corners and three safeties? That cross trains all of its linebackers and was rotating two of them pretty evenly at the SAM? Come on.
- Then the next thing was the "turnovers" the defense "forced" in the first half. There is quite a difference between forcing something and being gifted something. The defense was gifted a fumble on the screen pass and the defense was gifted a missed field goal when the center rolled the snap back to the holder. Yes it got off the field on a 4th and short, after it had let Oklahoma drive the field. Worley's FF was a nice play, after the defense had allowed the offense to drive the field. Oklahoma started all of its first half drives inside its own 30, two inside its own 15, it moved the ball at will on just about all of those drives.
- Once you take the silly fatigue excuse out of play, there was no defending the second half effort. The Ohio State offense, for all of its warts, scored on its first two drives to open the half. The defense, which has to be the rock of this team, had a chance to stabilize things right then and there and give the team a boost. Instead, it gave up touchdowns on two of Oklahoma's first three drives of the second half. Including allowing Oklahoma to march right down the field and tie it at 10 right as the offense found some momentum and got things going.
- The front four needed to be better but it wasn't a bad effort. Bosa made some plays, Dre'Mont Jones made some plays and I thought Sam Hubbard had a good game. The linebackers were exploited big-time on the RPO's. All of them. All of them at one point (or multiple points) were victimized on those. Tough night for Malik Harrison, he'll need to use this as a learning experience, so much physical talent but so little experience.
- I said after last week I needed to see a larger sample size on the DB's. I'm now more concerned. A lot of guys were out of position last night. It is never a good thing to routinely see defensive backs SPRINTING with their backs turned to the play. Assignments were being blown out there.
- Not going to single anyone out here, though it's probably not hard to figure out, but there has been A LOT of chatter behind the scenes on these DB's being three-and-done, that this would be their last year in Columbus and that Ohio State would have to replenish its cornerbacks room again this off-season.
Darron Lee earned the right to be a three-and-done, Joey Bosa and Zeke Elliott and Eli Apple and Marshon Lattimore and Malik Hooker went out on the field and earned the right to be a three-and-done. Perhaps a little less talking about/focusing on the NFL dreams and a little more producing on the college football field is in order there. Just saying.
The silver lining? It's hard to see, but it is there in some fashion. This was, in theory, the right game for Ohio State to lose this season. As I said last night, it is putting the cart way before the horse, to put it mildly, when discussing this team running the table the rest of the way, but the playoff hopes weren't extinguished last night. Now this team is going to have to get a hell of a lot better to start talking about running the table, but the season is not lost at this point.
There are a lot of good coaches over there inside the Woody and some very talented athletes and they can get this figured out, but I think everyone over there is going to have to re-evaluate what they're doing and take some blame for this one, because this was a total team loss from top to bottom.
