Following the game vs. Northwestern, the talk about the team was their inability to run the football all this year. After the hiring of Justin Frye, after an entire off-season of emphasis, the team still struggles with running the football. The recommitment in the weight room, the greater usage of good-on-good repetitions in practice, the redesign of the offense…all of it for naught.

Is it true? Do the Buckeyes have genuine concerns running the football? Here is each play analyzed as I see it:

 I am just going to get it out of the way first. As anyone who has watched the game can tell you, the passing numbers and performance is almost entirely useless for future prediction. Even if this game wasn’t played in a windstorm, it would have been such a ludicrous outlier that I would have ignored it regardless. Much in the same way that those expecting Justin Fields to struggle against Clemson due to his performance against Northwestern were surprised, expecting this passing game to struggle because of this game makes no sense.

Here are the passing and receiving charts, which can be safely disregarded.

Lots of drops. Lots of decent throws not caught. More bad throws than CJ has ever had in a game. Again, this will have no bearing on the rest of the season and expecting it to is just going to result in being surprised. Be my guest if you want to feel the rush of remembering that Ohio State has an awesome passing offense later in the season. For others who just want to know what to expect, forget the passing part of this game ever happened.

The far more interesting information is what happened with the rushing attack. For that, we can consult the general offensive grades:

Honestly, the rushing and blocking numbers are genuinely surprising. Going into this game, I expected the rushing problems to be more similar to the last two games: mid blocking with some first-half struggles in play-calling

However, that is not what we see at all. Well, not totally. I do think the play-calling improved as the game went on, almost as if Ohio State tried to run with just their base play, before adding constraints as the day went on when they needed to kick it into gear. The coaching staff also dialed up a couple plays that punished a cheating Northwestern defense resulting in big gains in tight spots, especially the two Stroud keepers.

Beyond the play-calling, though, this was the worst I have seen them block this year. While I think the demise of the guards has been overstated, I had this as another rough game for Donovan Jackson, a much worse game than Penn State for Matt Jones, and Wypler’s first negatively graded day on the season. I generally want to see three poor games in order to say that something is problem, and it takes a lot more games to get out of that space. Having said that, based on my grading, I would still need to see two more bad games for Matt Jones and Wypler before I am ready to make any proclamations about them being a problem spot. I know a lot of people thought Matt Jones had a bad game against Penn State, but I thought he had enough positives to make up for the mistakes. Some of those mistakes I also put on Wypler and Dawand Jones’ shoulders too. So at least for those two, I am not overly concerned. Donovan Jackson has already had two games like this in the last three weeks, so I am frankly more concerned about him going forward. The good news is that he is the only offensive lineman that is tracking like every lineman did last year – great against mediocre opponents and poor against great opponents. While you never want to see anyone on the line play like that, this line is still playing better than last year’s outfit by a significant margin. Still, I think there is a little variance with the interior of the line, especially Jackson. We probably won’t see another opportunity to evaluate it until the Michigan game. Might be something to be concerned about.

On the bright side, I feel much better about the tackles than I did last year, both in pass protection and in the run game. Last year, NPF and Dawand Jones always struggled against the best teams, with Jones In particular never shining for me. He would have a couple of impressive plays per game, but I never really saw it sustained over an entire game. This year, he and Paris Johnson Jr. have been as steady as they come. Because everybody is looking ahead to the Michigan game, this will be one of the areas of the game that will be most different from last year – Ohio State’s offensive tackles are playing much better than last year and Michigan’s edge rushers are a significant step-down. If CJ has all day to throw this year, the running game might be a moot point.

Miyan Williams had the worst game I have charted from him. I always laud his ability to cut upfield when necessary, but he was committed to bouncing the ball outside, even when he only needed a yard or two. This doesn’t feel like a trend, but we will see.

Stroud’s usage in the rushing attack was refreshing to see, especially the way the coaches worked zone read off of their outside zone on a crucial 4th and 1, split zone off of the zone read that worked previously, and then arc read off of the split zone concept. They kept catching Northwestern in traps. Ohio State was happy to just run their base run concepts, but with more variation than usual. Going into this game, I thought a big reason that they were struggling in the run game was a lack of variation, but they brought that to this game. They ran more power and counter rushes than usual, though the execution was not great early in the game. Still, the Stroud rushing constraint was huge to the gameplan.

Here is an insane statistic that deserves its own paragraph: Before Stroud’s first zone read carry, Ohio State averaged 1.9 YPC. After Ohio State started involving CJ Stroud in the run game, their rushing average for all runs improved to 9.5 YPC. That is an increase of 7.6 YPC, more than the entirety of what Michigan ran against Ohio State last year. It was a simple change, but it turned Ohio State’s offense from a bad rushing team to an unstoppable rushing team with a minor change. This is also why it felt like Ohio State was terrible running the ball against Northwestern but ended up running for 5.9 YPC, or better than Michigan averages on a weekly basis. The only thing that slowed Ohio State’s offense after that change was the decision to continue passing in that weather.

Of course, in a normal game, Ohio State will be able to use the threat of the pass to constrain defenses instead of just using CJ Stroud. He may not need to run the rest of the year. Regardless, I think that having that in the team’s back pocket may be the secret sauce for a dominant end-of-the-year performance.  

Given all of what I’ve just said, I am significantly more optimistic than the average Ohio State fan right now about The Game, although there are areas of concern. The run blocking has been much better than last year. The pass blocking has been much better than last year. For the third time in three games, Ohio State’s offense was plenty good as soon as they adjusted in the second half. The tight ends are better. The passing game is more efficient. The running game is more efficient. The rhetoric surrounding this team’s rushing ability is strictly a meme; there is a reason everyone uses the euphemism “finesse” instead of using the wide array of possible synonyms or descriptive terms for the defense and rushing attack. Furthermore, people will always be influenced by recent events instead of looking at the whole. I made that mistake last year after the Michigan State game regarding the offense.  This year, I will be avoiding recency bias at all costs.

What should we be worried about?

The little things piling up. I think individually, I like each position group on the team. I think every player is capable of playing at a National Championship level. However, there are so many games like this one where it seems like a single thing is off on every play. At least last year, the entirety of the offensive line was getting beat one-on-one against any good defense. I could say for a fact that the offensive line was struggling against good defensive lines. This year, I have a hard time saying it because it is usually only one guy per play, and it isn’t the same guy every time. They are much better after I grade them than last year, but the result hasn’t felt nearly as excellent.

Do I think there will be some reversion to the mean and that eventually, the offense will be running at a more efficient rate? Absolutely. Does it still terrify me that the small mistakes continue to spread themselves out and that the tiny mistakes will ruin their season? Without a doubt.

What should we not be worried about?

The running game.

Again, while there has been a lot of negativity to the running game this year, I just don’t think it is that bad. On the contrary, I think it is pretty good. They have an almost identical YPC to last year’s team (5.5 YPC vs. 5.6 YPC), which was better than Michigan last year (5.1 YPC) and similar to Michigan this year (5.7 YPC). Ohio State just happened to have their worst rushing game last year against Michigan, who itself was not a particularly good rush defense. Even Michigan’s vaunted rushing attack this year cannot score touchdowns in the red zone. That game has completely tainted our entire understanding of how good rushing attacks should be.

Are short yardage runs a concern? Sure. There is more than one way to convert on short yardage though. By solely relying on one or the other, you open yourself up to being stopped consistently. They have to have a balance, and recently, they’ve been too run-heavy. I expect this to subside in games that they must take seriously.

This becomes false if they struggle against Indiana or Maryland.

What should we be excited about?

You can probably tell from the overall tone of this post, but I came out more optimistic from this game from an offensive perspective (though the defense is a different story). There just isn’t enough to take away from the passing or receiving perspective, so I won’t even try. The main takeaway is the massive improvement as soon as Ohio State made a small tweak in the offense by giving Stroud a couple of read options. While it was a small change, as I stated before, the effect was massive. While it may not have that same effect going forward, that same constraint can help Ohio State do a lot of things with equalizing numbers and giving their blockers a slight edge.

I am also excited to see if the coaches have anything else up their sleeve, even if it is just a slight adjustment for the Michigan game. Even running a couple more gap runs per game and throwing a zone read or two in the gameplan can result in a far more effective run game. Furthermore, their passing attack has been good enough that I think they can throw on anyone, though they haven’t really been given much of a chance. If Michigan tries to stack the box, they are screwed. If they try to play a light box, I think Ohio State can do enough to move the ball. Ohio State has the ability to win their game, and this team doesn’t have the same glaring flaws as last year’s team. Still, they will have to put it all together on November 26.