Throughout the week leading up to last week’s season opener against Texas, Ryan Day said Ohio State’s only goal against the Longhorns was to win. So he couldn’t be upset that the Buckeyes only gained 203 yards of offense in their 14-7 win over the Longhorns.
A win is a win, especially when it comes against a team that was ranked No. 1 in the polls. But Day knows the Buckeyes will need more from their offense if they’re going to keep winning all year long.
“I can't sit up and say to you guys that the number one goal is to just win (and be disappointed) – if it's 14-7, we have to be really, really excited about that,” Day said Tuesday. “The number one thing was to win the game. We wanted to establish an identity in terms of playing physical; I think you saw that. I think guys played hard in this game. I thought there was a physicality to the game. The execution's got to improve. We need to be more explosive on offense, for sure.”
Ohio State’s 203 yards of offense against Texas tied the 2023 Cotton Bowl against Missouri – a game the Buckeyes lost 14-3 – for the fewest yards the Buckeyes have gained in a game in the Ryan Day era. Its 3.76 yards per play was Ohio State’s second-lowest average of the Day era behind only that loss to Missouri.
The Buckeyes’ rushing offense struggled in particular, gaining just 77 total yards on 34 attempts with no runs longer than eight yards. Julian Sayin and Carnell Tate connected for a 40-yard touchdown pass, but none of Sayin’s other passes went for more than 16 yards.
Some of that was by design. After taking a 7-0 lead in the second quarter, Ohio State intentionally kept things conservative on offense for the most part, wanting to control time of possession and avoid costly turnovers that could turn into Texas points. Day praised offensive coordinator Brian Hartline after the game for his “unselfish” playcalling, as the Buckeyes knew they couldn’t chase style points going against one of the nation’s best teams with a quarterback making his first career start.
Five of Ohio State’s 11 possessions started inside its own 10-yard line, which also influenced the conservative play calling, as the Buckeyes didn’t want to take unnecessary risks so close to their own end zone.
“We found ourselves backed up a lot, one time on the one-yard line, and when you're in those moments, you have to be very, very careful with the football,” Day said. “And you get a little limited in what you can do with this type of defense, with this type of quarterback, with everything going into play.”
Excluding those drives and the Buckeyes’ final possession on which they kneeled out the clock, Ohio State drove for touchdowns on two of its other five drives. Its opening drive ended with a turnover on downs that should have been a fourth-down conversion on an accurate throw by Sayin dropped by tight end Max Klare.
That said, there are a couple of drives from Saturday’s game that Day would like to have back. One was the opening drive of the second half, on which the Buckeyes went three-and-out after a James Peoples run went for no gain and a third-down pass from Sayin intended for Jeremiah Smith fell incomplete. Day often talks about the importance of winning the “middle eight” – the final four minutes of the first half and the first four minutes of the second half – and he felt the Buckeyes squandered an opportunity to do so on that drive.
“I didn't like the way we played in the first four minutes of the third quarter. We can do better there. There's a lot of things that we can execute better. And if we do, again, the game can change real fast,” Day said. “We talk about the middle eight, we won those first four minutes, but we didn't win those second four minutes. We deferred, and we got the ball to start the second half, and I thought we could have done better there.”
Day was also unhappy with the offense going three-and-out after Texas scored its only touchdown of the game to make it a one-score game late in the fourth quarter. CJ Donaldson was stopped for no gain on first down, then Sayin threw the ball away under pressure on second down. On third down, Sayin completed a pass to Brandon Inniss for only five yards, forcing the Buckeyes to punt the ball back to Texas with 2:33 left to play.
Day wants Ohio State to be more aggressive offensively to finish off the game when it’s in that situation in the future.
“I do think at that point, we need to be a little bit more aggressive right there,” Day said. “That first run, it didn't quite hit right. And then they played man on second down and kind of hemmed us up. And then we're in third-and-long, which is bad, especially with an incompletion right there,” Day said. “I'm a part of that, so I'm being self-critical; that last drive, we've got to go win the game in that moment. But at the end of the day, you just got to win the game and then move on and grow from there.”
“We need to be more explosive on offense, for sure.”– Ryan Day on Ohio State’s offensive performance vs. Texas
The good news for the Buckeyes, thanks to a dominant defensive performance, is they still did just enough offensively to beat Texas, giving them a massive non-conference win to start their season. And they now have three weeks to focus on improvement before they begin conference play, as they’ll be heavily favored in their next two games against Grambling State and Ohio and have a bye week after that.
They also know now that they have a quarterback they can build around in Sayin, who graded out as a champion for his efficient effort after he completed 13 of 20 passes for 126 yards and one touchdown with – most importantly – no turnovers.
“He graded out over 80%. His adjusted completion percentage with a few drops was pretty good. So we felt like he took care of the ball, made some good throws,” Day said. “I'd like to think that if we had made a few plays for him earlier on in the game, maybe it would have gone a different direction. But I don't think he ever flinched. So good start.”
All of that said, Ohio State will be looking for a much more proficient day offensively when it faces Grambling State in its second game of the season on Saturday (3:30 p.m., Big Ten Network). The Buckeyes have too much talent not to be more dynamic offensively than they were in the season opener, and working toward that will be a big point of emphasis this week in practice.
“We need to be more explosive. We need to get to the second level and make guys miss, or get to the second level and block them on the perimeter. We need to space out the passing game,” Day said. “I could give you a list a mile long of things we need to improve on. But we got it, and that's what the focus is going to be this week.”
