Merih said:

Once Hartline took the job, the option set for Day in this playoff run is: zero Hartline / leave the team, or 50% of Hartline with planned contingency / gap fill from Day and others. He's chosen the second. Makes sense to me.

The issue with the Indiana game was everyone thought it was 100% of Hartline, but then it wasn't, with zero time to put in a contingency, right after an already emotional high. It was worst case scenario.

This next game is a totally different setup. Everyone knows the constraints and expectations and have a month to work it out. I expect the offense to look much better

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Buckeye86 said:

I have a theory I’ve been thinking about. The click bait headline is that Brian Hartline is too demanding of his wide receivers.

I think this manifests itself in two ways.

First, the shallow rotation. This has been a back burner discussion for several years which I think came more to the fore this season. As Hartline was taken away from the receiver room, I think he had less time to grow the trust he needed in the backups to develop a better rotation, even compared to previous seasons.

Second, and I think this only became a problem this season as he took over play calling responsibilities, his play calling indicates a lack of trust in his wide receivers, especially with run blocking, which, surprise surprise, manifests itself most severely in the red zone and short yardage plays, which have been a massive problem all season.

In my head, the coaching room conversation goes something like this:

Hartline: “The receivers aren’t perfectly executing their run blocks on every single play (to the theory that he’s too demanding of the WRs), we can’t depend on them in short yardage. Bailey, are your guys ready to go?”

Bailey: “Hell yeah, let’s ride!”

Day: “It looks like the TEs are grading out higher than the WRs (I am assuming the position coaches are responsible for giving out the championship grades here, going back to the main thrust of the theory) in run blocking, I guess we’re going to keep going with three and four TE sets in short yardage and the red zone.”

Hartline: “Good, my guys are bad at run blocking.”

Bailey: “Great, my guys are the greatest ever at everything. Can we put five TEs on the field at the same time?”

Hartline as WR coach with a different person at OC who can override his perfectionism and still use the WRs heavily in all situations has been a great formula for Ohio State.

Hartline as the WR coach and OC with no one to override his perfectionism has, in my opinion, led to the baffling over reliance on TEs this season.

I am hopeful that this will be resolved in the post season with Day taking over more of the play call responsibilities, and longer term with the replacement hires.

Maybe I’m always the Buckeye optimist, but replacing Hartline as the best WR coach in the country is impossible, but replacing Hartline as the WR/OC has room for improvement, even as the WR room might take a hit.

Now I’m really going off the deep end here, I think Hartline’s run of insane WR recruiting was winding down in the age of NIL anyways, as each school can only budget for so many truly elite players per position group and Hartline (or anybody else) isn’t going to be stacking them 4-5 deep per class anymore regardless of how good they are at recruiting.

Again, I think the WR room will likely take a hit, but all of these things mitigate how big that hit will be in my always overly optimistic opinion.

Day has been hitting his coaching hires out of the park, and with the right hires this offseason, I again think he has the chance to improve the overall picture on offense despite the loss of Hartline.

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osuvictory1 said:

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Jaxbuck said:

As ESPN promotes a 30:30 telling us about Stuart Scott being a cultural icon.

He had a few good lines. None of these people are the actual entertainment.

None of these people seem to realize that.

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Bucklion said:

Sad thing is Romo was good for about a hot minute when he started...then he heard he was good, and immediately began believing he was the star of the show, not the football. It went Lusitania quickly after that. As self-aggrandizing as Brady can be, he is at least following the game that he's watching, instead of doing whatever it is Romo does now. He still interjects his own career way too much, and the PBP guys he's with also do it too much...they were talking about him milking cows and shit on Sunday. Most of the people calling sports nowadays are insufferable twats who think it's about them. It's the same reason a guy like Vitale, who could be a sharp analyst when he wanted to be, became an insufferable douche. As soon as the commentator thinks he or she is a "brand", it's all over. Danielson got that way. Collinsworth has always been arrogant. And of course Derpstreit is the King Kong Bronzer of overbranding.

There are some guys that aren't bad...Moose, Vilma, Kevin Harlan, Ian Eagle is OK...but they are few and far between.

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RuGettinIt said:

Yeah both Danielson and Nessler are done. I also believe that Collinsworth is retiring.

Now if we can just get the Thursday night twats and Romo out…..

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SEREbuckeye said:

Flood gates are slowly opening.

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Jaxbuck said:

I mean, if you are going to just go heel then go all the way.

What's Art Briles up to?

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LovelandBuckeye said:

But, is this a loss for Nebraska? @Thump

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BuckeyesGunn said:

Is everyone at ttun an insufferable self-righteous hypocrite?

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• Cameron Johnston debuted as the Giants’ punter after signing to their practice squad earlier in the week. He averaged 45.5 yards per punt on four punts in their loss to the Commanders.