Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer, offensive coordinator Ed Warinner and quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator Tim Beck devise a collective plan every week to get each playmaker on the Buckeyes’ offense a certain number of touches.
Things rarely go according to plan and certain circumstances arise within a game causing those blueprints to be altered, but Meyer and Co. feel as if they’re getting close to reaching those specific target numbers for each guy.
“Oh, sure,” Meyer said Monday when asked if the Buckeyes were on the verge of reaching their offensive potential.
There were a few players who did not get their specific number of touches — Meyer singled out tight end Nick Vannett and H-back Curtis Samuel — but the point is more guys reached their goal than those who did not.
“Tight ends, you’d like to have them a couple because they’ve earned that right and Curtis Samuel we did not hit the target number,” Meyer said. “But Mike Thomas we did, Braxton Miller we hit the target number, J.T. Barrett — his involvement — I have him on the list now. Jalin Marshall is another.
“So we’re getting pretty close.”
In Ohio State’s 49-28 win over Maryland, running back Ezekiel Elliott had 27 total touches; Thomas had seven plus a handful of targets; Miller had eight touches; Marshall touched the ball four times; and Barrett had 12 carries and threw two passes.
“I thought it was clicking better than it had been, for sure,” Beck said. “It was good balance, good inside run, outside run, the quarterbacks ran some, completed balls to a lot of different people down the field, short, underneath. I felt like everybody, the coaches did a really good job game planning and our players did a good job going out and executing.”
Samuel had just one offensive touch, though, and neither Vannett nor fellow tight end Marcus Baugh recorded a catch. Dontre Wilson also only had one touch, but Meyer did say Wilson tweaked his foot in the game causing him to miss some time. He’s expected to be fine.
Improvement, yet not perfect.
It probably never will be exactly what Ohio State wants, though. There are simply too many players on offense to get every single guy his targeted number of touches. Things happen throughout the course of a game and a large part of offense is reacting to the different types of defenses thrown at you.
It’s extremely difficult to feed everyone, but the Buckeyes are doing their best to get everyone involved.
“The ultimate goal is to win and do what’s best for the team,” Beck said. “I think Coach [Meyer] understands that and with that in mind, those guys are going to help us win.
“A lot depends on personnel, formations, what defenses are giving us and who that is. Each guy kind of has their own special situation that they’re going to be involved in. There’s a lot that kind of goes into that; it’s not as easy as you might think.”
