I happened to notice that Indiana scored 52 points today despite only having 365 yards of total offense on only 9 drives and only forcing 1 turnover. Ohio State had 671 yards of total offense and put up 56 points on12 drives while also forcing 1 turnover. So, I did a bit of a deep dive and looked at average starting field position for both teams (and their opponents) today.
Rounded to the nearest yard, IU's average starting field position was its own 42 yard line. This was aided significantly by 67 and 41 yard kickoff returns and a 36 yard punt return. They only started 1 drive inside their own 20, on the 16, which resulted in their only punt, and 1 on their own 23. The worst starting field position for any of their 7 other drives was their own 39, snd they started three of their nine drives in North Texas territory despite giving up 367 yards of total offense to North Texas. On average they only had to go 58 yards per drive to score a TD, and they actually gained 40.55 yards per drive with 7 TDs, 1 FG (49 yards) and 1 punt.
North Texas's average starting field position was its own 25, so they had to go an average of 75 yards to score a TD, actually averaged 36.7 yards on their 10 drives (a number that might have been a bit higher if they didn't have the final drive of the game ended by the clock), and only scored 16 points. They actually outgained Indiana by 2 yards, but needed to go 17 yards further per drive to score and couldn't consistently do that.
Rounded to the nearest yard, Ohio State's average starting field position today was its own 24 yard line, with 5 of its 12 drives starting inside its own 10, two more at the 17 and 22, and none starting beyond its own 42 other than the drive following the interception, which put the ball at the Ball State 28. So, they had to go on average 76 yards,18 yards farther than Indiana, to score a TD. Credit to the offense, which averaged 55.91 yards per drive (over 15 more than Indiana) for mostly overcoming that with TD drives of 99, 94, 90, 83, 75, 62, 58, and 28 yards, but I doubt that 3 90+, 4 80+, or 5 75+ yard drives are likely against any quality opponent.
Ball State's average starting filed position was its own 29 yard line, which isn't too bad for OSU, and credit to Marcello Diomedes for getting touchbacks on all 9 of his kickoffs. So, they had to go an average of 71 yards, 5 fewer than Ohio State, to score a TD. Unfortunately for them, they only managed to gain 12.7 yards per drive, which seems like a testament to the quality of the Ohio State defense. This is basically a wash with what Indiana did as North Texas made the mistake of taking a kick out and getting a holding call, so I think it's fine.
TLDR and I'm sorry that it's so fucking obvious that it's annoying to say it: If Ohio State wants to win a national championship, it cannot constantly put itself behind the field position eight-ball with its horrific kick and punt return game. That's one of the big ways in which games against teams like Indiana are lost even when Ohio State may actually be better on both offense and defense. I'm not blaming Day as he has, finally, made what should be a good special teams coaching hire, but this bullshit with the kick and punt return game really needs to end.
