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LGHL Ohio State is a 3.5-point favorite over Penn State

Ohio State is a 3.5-point favorite over Penn State
Gene Ross via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here

Nebraska v Ohio State

Photo by Jason Mowry/Getty Images

The Buckeyes head to Happy Valley to take on the No. 3 Nittany Lions.

Ohio State managed to get back in the win column on Saturday against Nebraska to move to 6-1 on the year, though it was anything but pretty. Despite having two weeks to learn from the loss to Oregon and make improvements ahead of the matchup against the Cornhuskers, the Buckeyes looked tremendously unprepared as Ryan Day and his staff continue to raise more questions than they are answering.

Things will only get significantly harder from here, as Ohio State now must travel to Happy Valley for a battle with No. 4 Penn State.

Betting Odds: Ohio State -3.5 | O/U 47.5 (per FanDuel Sportsbook)​


Ohio State needed a bounce back performance after its loss to Oregon two weeks ago, and while the Buckeyes emerged victorious against Nebraska on Saturday, the performance did not inspire any confidence. Ohio State defeated the Cornhuskers 21-17 in a game they were favored by more than three scores, trailing 17-14 in the fourth quarter before a Quinshon Judkins touchdown with six minutes remaining put the Buckeyes back on top for good.

It’s clear that the injury to Josh Simmons is going to hamstring Ohio State’s offensive line the rest of the way, and the unit as a whole looked completely out of sorts without its starting left tackle. The Buckeyes mustered only 64 yards rushing against Nebraska, with neither Judkins nor TreVeyon Henderson managing more than 30 yards despite taking 10 carries each. After totaling at least 400 yards of offense as a team in each of the first six games of the season, Ohio State tallied only 285 yards against the Huskers.

Things were a little better for the Buckeyes’ defense, who after struggling to do much of anything against Oregon did make some plays against Nebraska. The Silver Bullets finished with 13 tackles for loss and three sacks as a unit, led by Cody Simon’s three tackles for loss in addition to his team-high eight total tackles. Ohio State forced one turnover in the game, a game-sealing interception by Jordan Hancock in the final two minutes, and made a fourth down stop on the goal line in the third quarter.

Penn State, meanwhile, hit the road for a battle with Wisconsin at Camp Randall. The Nittany Lions knocked off the Badgers 28-13, but the big story of the game was the injury to quarterback Drew Allar. The junior missed the entire second half, and was seen wearing a brace on his left knee on the sideline. It is unclear whether or not Allar will be able to return for the Ohio State game next weekend, but that is obviously a storyline to keep an eye on.

Even without Allar, Penn State was able to overcome a 10-7 deficit at the half thanks to some strong defense and an impressive showing from backup QB Beau Pribula. The Nittany Lions regained the lead in the third quarter on a 19-yard pick-six by safety Jaylen Reed, and added a pair of touchdowns in the fourth on a 1-yard pass by Primula and a 24-yard run by Kaytron Allen to stave off Wisconsin’s upset attempt and move to 7-0 on the year.

This defensive unit is legit, led by guys like Abdul Carter and Dani Denis-Sutton up front, the duo having combined for 13.5 tackles for loss and six sacks on the season. It is a less than ideal matchup for an Ohio State team that was already missing its starting left tackle, and may now have lost its backup for an extended period of time after Zen Michalski was carted to the locker room on Saturday against Nebraska.

Ohio State will have to find a way to recapture its early-season success if it wants to escape Happy Valley with a victory. The RPO-heavy offense that once looked unstoppable and led to immense production both through the air and on the ground has seemingly disappeared from the playbook, and the defense that at one time looked impenetrable has since sprung several leaks and now appears mediocre at best.

The Buckeyes are in desperate need of a big win, and will have to play their best game of the season thus far to earn in next weekend.

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LGHL Moment of the Game: Jordan Hancock sealed Ohio State’s win with game-saving interception

Moment of the Game: Jordan Hancock sealed Ohio State’s win with game-saving interception
Matt Tamanini via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here

Syndication: The Columbus Dispatch

Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Dylan Raiola had the ability become a Big Red legend, but under-threw his target dramatically

With No. 4 Ohio State up 31-17 with just 1:23 remaining in regulation, Jordan Hancock sealed the Homecoming win for the Buckeyes. On 3rd-and-long, Nebraska quarterback (and one-time OSU commit) Dylan Raiola threw a ghastly interception that sealed the often perilous victory for the Scarlet and Gray.

With starting safety Lathan Ransom out for the game (and potentially longer), Hancock moved from his traditional nickel position to the back of Ohio State’s defense and ended up being in the perfect place when Ohio State needed him the most.


OHIO STATE PICKS OFF RAIOLA

The @ohiostatefb defense does it again! pic.twitter.com/Su5tQEYDqG

— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) October 26, 2024​
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After nearly unforgivably timid offensive playcalling gave the ball back to Nebraska with 3:36 remaining, the Huskers’ true freshman quarterback had a chance to pull off an epic upset and cement himself in both Big Red and Buckeye Nation lore.

Penalties on three consecutive plays (Nebraska offensive pass interference and a false start calls sandwiched a ridiculous targeting penalty against Ohio State’s Arvell Reese) put the ball on Nebraska’s 41-yard line with just over two minutes remaining. The Huskers had one timeout, plus the two-minute break, so they had more than enough time to score and pull off the win.

However, after back-to-back negative completions for Raiola, Nebraska found itself in 3rd-and-19, forcing the young QB into a tough spot. He certainly didn’t need to get all of the yardage in one play, but he went for a big gain anyway, and it ended up costing him.

It appears that Husker wide receiver Jaylen Lloyd (I can’t fully see his number) beat Buckeye cornerback Davison Igbinosun on the third down, so if Raoila had hit him in stride deep, it could have resulted in the game-winner. Instead, the freshman inaccurately under-threw his man and OSU’s veteran DB secured the win. It appears that Raoila expected Lloyd to come inside after beating the corner, but instead, the WR was thinking end zone. Igbinosun did a good job of recovering, so a touchdown wouldn’t have been guaranteed even on a perfect throw, but it certainly wasn’t out of the question.

Nebraska’s offensive line had given Raoila a clean pocket, so it’s not like he was under pressure on the throw, but the errant pass might help explain why Nebraska only averaged 7.2 yards per completion on the game; if Raiola had been able to properly place a deep ball, the Huskers very likely would have left Ohio Stadium as winners.

Instead, Hancock comes up with a game-saving INT and the Buckeyes maintain the ability to control their own postseason destiny heading into Happy Valley next week. It might not have been pretty, and the game certainly brought up more questions than it answered, but a win’s a win. Hancock finished the day with five tackles, including three solo stops to go with this interception. So, if Ransom is out for a prolonged period of time, it seems like Hancock moving back, and Lorenzo Styles taking over the nickel might work for the Buckeye defense.

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Google Ohio State fans throw debris on field after controversial targeting call against Buckeyes is upheld - Saturday Down South

Ohio State fans throw debris on field after controversial targeting call against Buckeyes is upheld - Saturday Down South
via Google News using key phrase "Buckeyes".

Ohio State fans throw debris on field after controversial targeting call against Buckeyes is upheld Saturday Down South

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LGHL Ohio State ran twice as much as they threw against Nebraska. Chip, what are we doing?

Ohio State ran twice as much as they threw against Nebraska. Chip, what are we doing?
Matt Tamanini via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here

Akron v Ohio State

Photo by Jason Mowry/Getty Images

Will Howard was as close to perfect as you could expect him to be, and yet the coaches actively took the ball out of his hand in the second half.

There was a lot to be concerned and disappointed about in No. 4 Ohio State’s (6-1) 21-17 win over the Nebraska Cornhuskers (5-3), and I am sure that we will dive into all of them over the next six days leading up to next Saturday’s game against the No. 3 Penn State Nittany Lions. However, I want to focus on just one of my major complaints coming out of that thoroughly disjointed and uninspiring game.

To do so, let’s look at some stats:

Ohio State quarterback Will Howard completed 81% of his passes, averaged 17.0 yards per completion (13.8 per attempt), and finished the game with a QB rating of 246.7.

The Ohio State rushing game averaged 2.1 yards per carry (2.6 sack adjusted) and didn’t have a single run over 15 yards.

And yet, offensive coordinator Chip Kelly decided that the best course of action in a game where the Buckeyes were breaking in a new left tackle (emphasis on the word “breaking”) would be to lean on an ineffective rushing attack when the game hung in the balance.

At halftime, Howard was 9-for-9 for 167 yards, and yet, as the Buckeyes were unable to pull away from Big Red in the second half, the QB only attempted seven passes, completing four for 88 yards. Instead, OSU rushed the ball 17 times for 24 yards after intermission.

To emphasize the point, let’s look at one offensive series. While this is not a wholly offensive set of play calls, it is emblematic of the larger problem.

With the score 21-17 in favor of OSU with just 4:35 left in regulation, the Buckeyes had the ball at their own 37. Kelly called three straight runs; a one-yard gain and a no-gain by Quinshon Judkins, then a seven-yard gain by TreVeyon Henderson. That series resulted in a punt that gave Nebraska the ball back with 3:36, just 74 yards away from a go-ahead score.

The one positive on the drive was that it did force Husker’s coach Matt Rhule to spend two of his three second-half timeouts, but with his one remaining TO and the two-minute non-warning, there was plenty of time for Dylan Raiola and company to put together a game-winning drive; it also got me to drop an F-bomb on Elon Musk’s Twitter.com.


WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK WAS THAT?

— Land-Grant Holy Land (@Landgrant33) October 26, 2024​
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It seemed very clear from this set of calls — as well as the vast majority of the second half — that Ohio State’s staff was coaching scared. I understand the strategic rationale to run the ball in order to force Nebraska to use their timeouts, but Will Howard literally did not throw an incompletion in the first half, and yet, Kelly decided not to put the game in his hands, but rather to let it rest with a nearly completely ineffectual running attack.

This quickly after the game, I haven’t had a chance to rewatch and see how many of the second-half runs were RPOs, scrambles, or sacks — which would all change the play-calling stats to certain degrees — but with Zen Michalski obviously struggling in his first career start in place of Isaiah Simmons (before he himself was injured resulting in additional o-line tumult), there is no excuse to have 17 rushes to seven passes in a back-and-forth second half, especially when Howard was about as close to perfect as you could reasonably expect him to be.

Early in the fall, we saw an exciting level of creativity from Kelly’s play calling, with different motions, sets, and misdirections, but in only half a season, it seems like his better angels have been polluted by the overly cautious, predictable demons that we witnessed during the latter years of Ryan Day’s play-calling era. We saw nearly no surprising calls and nary a trick play against Nebraska, despite coming out of an off week following a heartbreaking loss. Thus is when Ohio State should have been establishing its identity as a national title contender as they opened up the second half of the season; instead, they raised even more questions about their ability to compete at the highest levels.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, I expected more from this coaching staff. However, time and time again, regardless of the specific personnel configuration, coming off of a bye and in the biggest games, OSU’s coaches come up short. Certainly, there is an element of this that is tied to player execution, but I think an objective evaluation would show that the coaches continually fail to put the players in the best positions to succeed when being more talented won’t win games om its own.

There is no doubt that Ohio State had the far more talented roster on the field today, but Nebraska had the superior coaches and might have even had the better complete team. However, OSU’s talent won the day, despite the coaches actively steering away from the things that had been proven successful all afternoon.

My confidence in this team’s potential to win the College Football Playoff, the Big Ten, or even against Penn State next week has precipitously declined over the last two games and the players’ performances represent only a small percentage of that sea change.

I was exceedingly optimistic at the beginning of this season that Ryan Day giving up play-calling duties, rebuilding his coaching staff, and being more aggressive in the transfer portal would represent a seismic change in the intensity and intentionality of this team. However, that does not seem to have happened. Instead, we are stuck watching an immensely talented fall victim to the exact same issues that have plagued it for the totality of Day’s tenure in Columbus.

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LGHL You’re Nuts: What will you have your eyes on in the second half of Ohio State’s regular season?

You’re Nuts: What will you have your eyes on in the second half of Ohio State’s regular season?
Brett Ludwiczak via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here

Akron v Ohio State

Photo by Jason Mowry/Getty Images

Your (almost) daily dose of good-natured, Ohio State banter.

With Ohio State being halfway through the 2024 regular season, we can look ahead to some of the storylines and things we’ll be looking for over the next six games. The Buckeyes are still in prime position to make the College Football Playoff, but they can’t become too comfortable since they still have tough games left at Penn State and in Columbus against Indiana and Michigan. Even though the Wolverines have taken a few steps back this season, Buckeye Nation can’t take the meeting between the rivals in late November for granted since Ryan Day has lost the last three meetings with That Team Up North.

There is no question Ohio State is one of the strongest teams in the country this season. There still are questions that need to be answered about the Buckeyes, though. How will the offensive line respond to the loss of tackle Josh Simmons? Will the defense continue to shrink in big games? What more would you like to see from the offense? Those are all questions that are pertinent to the Big Ten and national title hopes this season.

Today we want to know what you will be focusing on in the second half of Ohio State’s regular season. The loss to Oregon may sting but it definitely has made the Buckeyes take a deeper look at their team and things they can work on so they can make sure the same mistakes don’t happen if the two teams meet again in the Big Ten Championship Game or in the College Football Playoff.

Today’s question: What will you have your eyes on in the second half of Ohio State’s regular season?​

We’d love to hear your choices. Either respond to us on Twitter at @Landgrant33 or leave your choice in the comments.​

Brett’s answer: How the defense plays in big games​


There has been a common theme for the Ohio State defense since Jim Knowles took over as defensive coordinator following the 2021 season. The Buckeyes are lights out when they are playing lesser competition. Unfortunately the same can’t be said when Ohio State has played some of the top teams in the country over the last three seasons. While Oregon does have one of the best offenses in the country, the Buckeyes left more to be desired from their defensive unit when the Ducks had the football.

One area of the defense that stands out is the lack of impact plays the defensive line makes. Maybe defensive line coach Larry Johnson is past his prime and is kept on staff because of the work he did in the past. I almost guarantee that if you had someone 20 years younger producing results like Johnson has in the last few years, they would already be in the unemployment line. How J.T. Tuimoloau and Jack Sawyer aren’t bigger forces on the defensive line is puzzling. Both have had their moments over the last few years, they just aren’t consistently making life difficult for opposing quarterbacks.

It will also be interesting to see how cornerback Denzel Burke recovers from his horrific performance against Oregon. Burke had the unenviable task of trying to cover Tez Johnson, who has shown he is one of the best wide receivers in the country. If Burke wants to be considered one of the best cornerbacks in the country, he has to find a way to win a few of those battles with Johnson. As if allowing so many receptions wasn’t bad enough, Burke looked like he was allergic to talking against the Ducks. While the performance isn’t going to be a career-defining game for Burke, it could make teams think twice when he enters the NFL Draft.

Until it happens consistently, I just can’t trust Jim Knowles to make the right calls in a big game. There is way too much talent on defense for Ohio State to play as poorly as they did in Eugene. If the Buckeyes play the same way against Penn State, they might suffer the same fate and see their CFP hopes disappear, and if Ohio State doesn’t make the playoff then Knowles better be working on a revised version of his resumé since he’ll be looking for another job in the offseason.

Matt’s answer: Get some damn sacks in big games finally​


My answer is partially baked into Brett’s, but I am going to be a little more singularly focused on the defensive front in general and the defensive line specifically. We are all well aware of the Buckeye defense’s inability to come up with sacks in big games and in big moments. Nationally, they rank 33rd with 17 sacks on the season, but those types of numbers are cumulative and don’t give any sort of insight into when and against whom they happen.

Obviously, you expect to not be as disruptive and productive against the best competition on your schedule, but the difference between how Jim Knowles’ defenses play against the bad to above-average teams is markedly different from how they play against the best teams on the schedule. Knowles has been Ohio State’s defensive coordinator for two and a half seasons, so while it’s not the biggest sample size — especially since there are so many returning defensive starters — I do think that we can pinpoint the issues coming from the scheme.

The Buckeyes do not do anything creative with their pass rush on a consistent basis. It is primarily just run your four d-linemen straight ahead and hope they can beat the five offensive linemen and any tight ends or running backs that the opponents keep in for protection. As we have seen, that has not been especially productive.

I am not a football genius, so I cannot prescribe the exact play calls in every situation that will get this group of obviously physically gifted athletes to sack the quarterback, but I can tell what they have been doing isn’t working. So, I am hoping that we see more stunts, more exotic calls, more linemen dropping back while linebackers blitz, more involvement from the defensive backs in the pass rush, and basically whatever needs to be done in order to have some sort of disruptive impact on opposing QBs throwing the ball.

Denzel Burke is one of the best cornerbacks in the country, but he was absolutely embarrassed against Oregon. While he has to bear the brunt of that, it certainly didn’t help that Dillon Gabriel was not especially bothered by the OSU pass rush. Knowles and defensive line coach Larry Johnson need to get on the same page (despite Ryan Day obviously lying by saying they already are) and get this shit figured out.

You simply can’t have this conglomeration of talent and not meet any of your goals. Fortunately, beating Michigan, winning the Big Ten, and winning the national title are all still fully in their control, but if the Buckeye coaching staff doesn’t get some things figured out ASAP, I am afraid we will have another disappointing ending to the season, and very well another coaching search this winter.

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