Ohio State Football Forum

Ohio State Football Forum

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Those with doubts about playcalling

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GVerrilli92's picture
September 20, 2015 at 3:16pm
26 Comments

So the popular fad swarming Buckeye nation is to run around like a decapitated South Carolina mascot because of the offensive struggles/whatever the hell you call it. As the eternal optimist that I am, I refuse to hop on that bandwagon.

I also refuse to believe Herman was that much more legitimized in play-calling than Urban and Warriner are. It's not like the staff just up and forgot what made them successful a year ago. Now, could it be said that Warriner's heavier load of responsibility is taking away from his hands-on time with the slobs? Sure. Could it be said that defenses now have an entire year's worth of film on our blocking schemes? Absolutely. I do not have as much a problem with the playcalling, because the offense is still searching for an identity. That and we simply don't know what the coaches know about the strengths and tendencies of our players. What I do have a problem with is not being able to gain 4 yards on the ground whenever we want against Northern Illinois, regardless of how many defenders they have in the box. And In my opinion, Urban feels the same way and will continue to call plays that haven't been executed to his expectation - just to see if we can fix a problem.

I think some people may have the purpose of Urban's playcalling confused. There is no doubt in me that Meyer calls plays to challenge his offense in games that we should win. On 3rd and 4 on our side of the field against NIU, you best believe that he's calling inside zone to Zeke. And the defense knows it. It's a test of fortitude. It's almost as if Urban is the defense that his offense is playing against, at times he will induce adversity through the playcall to observe the response. There are a dozen plays he knows of that will get that first down, but with each play he is making evaluations that we aren't aware of. You don't do whatever you can to beat teams you should be favored against. You run a random variation of sorts to LEARN about your team under the lights. 

These first games are tryouts, and I implore you all to stay positive. We're tinkering now to figure out the base scheme so as to implement restraint plays later. In these games, the playcalling (IMO) is more about self-evaluation than beating the opponent. Otherwise, all 10 guys could just diddle themselves while Braxton runs the counter-draw and we would still win - but what would we learn?

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