brooooooo
CLOSER | INSIDE THE GLASS BOX
Max LeBlanc (88) played 13 snaps against Iowa.
If you're a defensive coordinator looking at Ohio State tape, you're discouraged by a precise and increasingly courageous quarterback playing behind a gelling offensive line and a steadily improving backfield-by-committee. It's currently led by two Jacksons, one almost old enough to legally rent a car and the other who plays very well when angry.
And, of course - Number Four and his capable sidekicks. What could you possibly do to slow this unit down? Then you begin examining the personnel packages north of 11 and see Nate Roberts, who is - this is the rose-colored stuff you guys complain about not seeing enough of here - playable.
He's an acceptable passing target. He knows where he is on the field. Here's Roberts (83) getting open for a touchdown off a terrific double move, but Julian Sayin bolts the pocket early and never sees him.
Arthur Smith is scheming the Ohio State offense for success that just requires improved execution.
So if you're trying to get Ohio State's offense off the field, it's looking bleak. Roberts is fine, and as usual, the help that developed elsewhere - Mason Williams - is serviceable. But if anyone else from that room gets onto the field, they're the fish.
And if you're a defensive coordinator, that's your biggest opening - by a significant, almost galactic margin - to get
Arthur Smith's terrific scheming to collapse beneath the most vulnerable Jenga piece in the offense, the room run by Keenan Bailey. That unit and special teams are still deadlocked in a death match nobody asked for, competing for the title of weakest unit on a championship team showing inspired and steady improvement elsewhere.
If anyone beyond Roberts or Williams enters the game, the Buckeyes are essentially playing down a man. In the play atop this section, LeBlanc's assignment is the DE/OLB. The defender directly in front of him is in a balanced split stance. That's as much of a pre-snap tell as running a receiver in motion and having a defensive back trail him -
ah, they're in man.
The guy LeBlanc starts off trying to block is lined up to cover whichever Jackson is in the backfield, should he release. This is basic film room instruction and primitive TE recognition for a unit whose first obligation is to block. And it goes completely unrecognized.
If TE4 just gets in front of his assignment instead of...whatever this was, Sayin has an extra second to hit his first read (out of the frame; no idea what it was) or reach his second, Brock Boyd, for a walk-in touchdown. But when you're the fish, you end up in a dish. And whenever TE depth sees the field, it's an aquarium out there.
When the Buckeyes reduced their TE presence and played in 11 personnel in Iowa City, they ran the ball conspicuously better. Cortez Hankton's unit put on another WR blocking clinic against the Hawkeyes. The team needs that kind of discipline and energy from the unit Smith's schemes desperately want to include and show off.
Maryland brings the last defense on the schedule against which this tight end room can afford to play its depth. Even here, it's the only consistent weak link in an offense that otherwise has everything necessary to avoid being stopped by a single defense in the country.
Just about every position group has played depth thus far, which is great for sustainability and figuring out who The Guys are going to be in an imposing back half. After this Saturday, there's one room that absolutely cannot afford to keep giving everyone it trusts (apparently, all of them?) chances to sabotage a championship scheme.
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