It’s been a long time since I’ve posted, but I think the current situation warrants it.  FWIW: I have 15 years experience coaching high school football here in Ohio, 12 of them as a Defensive Coordinator. 
 

The Buckeyes have talented players. 

I’ll address the defense first:  Our DB’s have been sub par the past couple seasons, and our LB’s have as well.  Some of that is from coming up short in recruiting, and some is technique/philosophy. One thing that became quickly apparent this season was the improvement of the linebackers.  They played aggressively and downhill. Watch last season and see them hop like rabbits at the snap of the ball trying to figure out what is happening, and then compare to this season. Defensive players don’t have time to think. Align properly, know your keys, know your responsibility, and at the snap, attack that responsibility with the proper technique. It has to be like breathing, you can’t think about it or you’ll be slow. 

Offense:  Injuries definitely took a toll this year, but next man up.  The offense was explosive at times, the receivers made plays, Stroud can read a defense and make the right decision, and there isn’t a better duo than Henderson and Williams in the country.  The O line is big and athletic. 
 

That brings me to coaching. None of the coaches at Ohio State are stupid. They know football. Mickey Mariotti is the same guy that transformed bodies like Darron Lee to be able to go from a high school QB into an elite linebacker.  So what’s the problem? It is the current culture. The culture is soft, not the players. But the culture being soft makes the players soft by default   Every day has to be a battle, every drill has to be a competition, and every failure has to have a consequence. IMO, the lack of this mindset is apparent in one stat above all others. Ohio State ranked 105th in the country at converting 3rd and short. A team that isn’t soft will line up, tell the defense where they are running and dare them to stop it  Twice, if necessary.  This softness has impacted Day as a play caller, (which he needs to give up) and it permeates the entire team and staff. Being soft is easy, and they must realize that anything easy, isn’t worth doing  .

I’ll end with a high school story. A few years ago we had a team that was average at best. This team hadn’t been to the playoffs in 16 years. We had an amazing sophomore class, only 3 juniors, and a large senior class that were good kids, but they had never won at any level. We knew we would only be more talented than a couple of teams we would face. Our schedule opened up with 3 teams that were 2 divisions above us. 0-4 was nearly a certainty. We had to come up with a plan, so we lied.  After the first game, we told the team that the opposing coach couldn’t believe how we hit on every single play. We started telling the team that we were the hardest hitting team in the league. Every day, every drill we repeated this line. By week 3, the kids started to believe.  By week 4 opposing coaches really were mentioning our physicality. Going into week 9 we had matched our 0-4 start to even our record at 4-4. We lose a heartbreaker in week 9 that eliminated us from post season contention, but still we out hit our opponent every play.  Week 10, Rivalry week!  Our rival was more talented, more experienced, and was expected to beat us by double digits to secure their spot in the playoffs.  What they didn’t have was our heart, our toughness, or our culture.  They took their first lead of the game with 1:10  left in the fourth quarter.  Our kids didn’t flinch. We told them that we would return the kick to midfield, we were going to run our hook and ladder play that we had practiced all year for this game, and we were gonna score. We returned the kick to the opponents 48 yard line. Our receiver that practiced the hook had broke his hand playing linebacker earlier in the game. (Obviously we didn’t know it was broke) He went in, caught the ball, pitched it to the wing and was pushed out at the 2.  Everyone in the stadium knew our sophomore fullback was getting the ball the next play and it didn’t matter. He punched it in and the best team our rival has had in 20 years missed the post season just like us.  
 

That culture of toughness set the stage  for the entire program going forward. 3 straight years with a winning record and winning playoff games. The team has a new staff this year, but the culture is still there. They beat teams this year because they were tougher, and went back to the playoffs.  Woody always said “you win with people”, and that is true, but if you look deeper, you’ll see that you win with tough, hard-ass people that don’t know quit and detest failure.