The Michigan State game marked the end of the first half of the regular season. In addition to the Michigan State game, I wanted to sum up the first half of the season and compare it to last year’s grades at the midpoint as well.

While there are still things to talk about in this game, Michigan State is one in a long line of teams that looked better in the pre-season than they look right now. While it was arguably Ohio State’s most complete game of the season, the ominous cloud of poor competition hangs over any discussion of this game.

Still, what the Buckeyes did to Michigan State should be illegal. No shame in talking about it one last time:

The phrase, “not as close as the final score suggests” was first uttered for a game like this. Honestly, it could probably apply to a few of the games Ohio State has played, including the Wisconsin game. The unfortunate thing is that this is only moderately reassuring, as both Michigan State and Wisconsin have not looked good this season. While I don’t feel the need to belabor this point, I do feel like it is something that needs to be said for every Ohio State game this season up until the Michigan game. There are games on the schedule that may test certain parts of the Ohio State team – Iowa/Penn State/Wisconsin/Notre Dame defenses; Maryland offense – there is no game that tests the entire team until the Michigan game. This isn’t completely unheard of, but it is unusual.

Yes, the Big Ten is probably down this year. No, it probably doesn’t matter. If anything, it allows Ohio State to work through some kinks in practice and avoid being exposed in any sort of way to playoff teams. There is still quite a bit to take from this game, and by extension, the first half of the season, despite the opponents played:

Over the past year and a half, it has become painfully obvious to me that, for the most part, players are consistent. Furthermore, against opponents like this, Ohio State just mauls everyone. It is hard to come up with takeaways against an opponent that is clearly overmatched. Still, scoring on 7 of the first 8 possessions, including three drives of over 90 yards is impressive against anyone. For individual performers, however? It was excellent across the board. Nobody really stands out from anyone else because they all played exceptionally.

I think it would be far more interesting to see how everyone has stacked up so far this season. Below are the aggregate offensive scores for this season:

Just for comparison’s sake, here is how the team performed at this point last year:

There aren’t a ton of differences, but it is clear that 2022 is the higher-performing group to this point in the season. The competition hasn’t been much different, either. At least according to F+, which combines the FEI and SP+ rankings, both 2022 Wisconsin and Notre Dame are better than 2021 Oregon, though no team Ohio State has played thus far has been as good as 2021 Minnesota. Still, the overall quality of teams hasn’t been that different. With this in mind, the improvements from the 2021 team look palpable.

The most obvious improvement is in the offensive line play. By this point last year, I had thought that the offensive line was playing well, though it wasn’t one of the strongest parts of the team. After the BYE week, the offensive line’s performance cratered for the remainder of the year. At least to this point in the season though, Luke Wypler, Paris Johnson Jr., and Dawand Jones are all playing better, while Matthew Jones has been unable to match the great start he got off to in 2021.  Still, by the end of the year, I expect all four of these players to match or exceed last year’s performance, which is a huge benefit to the team. Improvement is always expected with players as they get older, but it isn’t necessarily a given. Improvement across the board is likely a result of good coaching, and Justin Frye looks to be worth every penny at this point in the year. Of course, given last year’s struggles against the back half of the schedule, we won’t really know until after the Iowa and Penn State games. Even then, it might be the Michigan game when we find out for sure about this unit. Early returns are extremely promising, however.

I was grading quarterbacks and wide receivers a little differently back in 2021, so it isn’t a direct comparison for those two groups. This also distorts the totals for these two groups, which look like the totals for the 2022 team.

The running backs’ grades reveal a couple of things. First, Miyan Williams is running about as well as he did last year, but with much more opportunities this year. While the first half of 2021 saw few carries, he finished the 2021 season with a percentage of 85%, which is almost exactly how he has played thus far. I think the consensus is that Williams improved a lot over the offseason, but I think he was always basically this good. Henderson is perhaps the big surprise here, as he has graded much higher than last year despite not getting off to as good of a start. Last year I thought he would miss opportunities for solid gains in an attempt to get a huge explosive play. This year, he is taking solid yardage. While this has probably decreased the explosiveness of the offense, it has made it a lot more efficient, which is a trade I think the coaches would take if it meant they were more likely to stay on schedule on offense. I think both backs have been excellent this year, and Trey’s improvement has led to a better room overall.

The tight ends are also a source of significant improvement. Their mid-year scores last year were much better than their end-of-the-year scores. Ruckert struggled against solid defenses all last year. Cade Stover so far has had none of those problems. I would take him both in the passing game and as a blocker over the 2021 version of Jeremy Ruckert. Rossi was playing about this good percentage-wise last year but with much less usage. Not only do they use him consistently as a blocking tight end, but his usage as a fullback in goal-line packages was missed dearly last year.

The quarterback has done pretty well himself:

This is compared with Stroud’s performance last season:

They really aren’t that different. I think that the disappointment some have felt has stemmed from Stroud largely having the same type of season he had last year, which I don’t think is entirely fair. It is hard to improve on being the best quarterback in the country. Stroud played his best games late last season, so to maintain the gaudy statistics he will need to play even better over the second half of the year. Admittedly, I have been grading harder than I did at the beginning of his career as well, so it isn't comparing apples to apples. 

I think not having JSN affected Stroud a little bit, especially given that the offense they have been running is probably different than the one they were intending to run. One of Stroud’s best traits is his anticipation, but if he and the receivers are working on relatively new things, this can get thrown off. I don’t think it is an accident that he got better as the Notre Dame game went on, and he had his best game in his most recent one.

Also, an underappreciated aspect of his season thus far has been his new role as the elder statesman of the group instead of the new guy. All of his receivers are first-time starters. While I don’t think this has a huge effect, it definitely helped early last season to have Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson there to aid Stroud’s transition to starting quarterback. As the season goes on, I imagine the receivers will improve, leading to improved performance from Stroud as well. At least, that’s the thought.

Also, the receivers were pretty great in this one, especially Marvin Harrison Jr.

I have never charted three spectacular catches in a single game, but Harrison managed to do it. He has been great all year, and it has been a pleasure to watch.

Compared to last year, this group still holds up well.

There isn’t a huge difference between the two, though last year’s group had a lot more routine drops, where this year’s group has only had one routine catch dropped through six games. Last year, I did the mid-year review after five games charted, and in those four games, Ohio State’s incredible receiver group dropped four routine passes. This year, through six games, they’ve only dropped one.

The two sample sizes for passing attempts are similar, meaning that last year’s team relied much more heavily on the pass than this year’s team. That checks out; last year’s offense was an air raid outfit at times, especially against the best teams on their schedule. This year, that is not the case at all. Again, this offense has traded explosiveness for efficiency, and I think it will aid them against the best defenses on their schedule. Last year’s team probably couldn’t score more than 30 against Iowa. We will see if this team is any different.

What should we be worried about for the second half of the year?

Real defensive opponents. Wisconsin and Notre Dame were fairly respectable, but Iowa, Penn State, and Michigan are all much better. Last season, the offensive line fell off precipitously as soon as Ohio State played good defensive teams on the schedule like Penn State, Nebraska, and Michigan. While I think this group is much better and that this offense is built to beat opponents in a greater variety of ways, I think that a dip in performance is to be expected against better competition. The most important question – how big will the dip be?

What should we not be worried about for the second half of the year?

Stroud only being as good as he was last year. While I expect him to play better in the second half of the season, his performance last year was good enough to win a national championship. C.J. Stroud was at times the only reason why that team was as good as it was. Merely meeting that standard this year means that this offense is good enough to win a national championship. For me, that is more than enough.

What should we be excited about for the second half of the year?

I think the return of JSN is the biggest thing to be excited about. This offense has already probably been better than last year’s version without arguably its best player. If he comes back healthy, there is no reason to believe that this team won’t be even better offensively.