Ken
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2nd Thoughts: Ohio State Passes by Maryland, 49-28
Ken via our good friends at Buckeye Battle Cry
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Well, that finished a lot better than it started. And “than it started” refers up through early in the 3rd quarter. The Buckeyes hosted Maryland as their Homecoming offering, and significantly outplayed the Terrapins in the last quarter and a half to pull away with a 49-28 win on Saturday. There were stretches of sketchy play (end of 1st half, beginning of 2nd half), some stretches of great play (whenever Ezekiel Elliott and JT Barrett touched the ball) and some stretches “meh” play (everything else). Last week, I thought the offense regressed, forget the score. This week, the team made a step forward with cohesiveness and with their situational play.
So, here we go…
Special Teams
Cam & Co averaged 55 yd/46 net on only 3 punts. Not to go all “Tresselball”, but if you can flip half of the field per punt, you are getting your team out of a potentially sticky situation.
On to kicking. Field goals were 0-1. Not much to say here than Neurenberger must not be up to snuff in practice. This needs to get resolved. There will be a game, or two, where a FG will mean something. Kickoffs? Willoughby kicked off 8 times and had 4 touch-backs. The coverage team limited Maryland’s Will Likely to 16 yards per return. This was a big “win” for the Buckeyes. Kudos to whoever the Special Teams coach is…
Defense
The defensive effort was overall pretty good, all things considered. Of the 28 points allowed; 7 were on a blown assignment on DJ Moore’s 52 yd TD reception, 7 were on a total brain freeze by the defense on Hills’ TD with less than a minute remaining in the first half, and another 7 points with a garbage time TD by Wes Brown with < 1 minute in the game. Notice that half of Maryland’s points were ceded with less than a minute to play in each half. The defense really needs to maintain focus for a full 60 minutes. Lapses like this may be OK against Maryland, but from here on out, they could be game-costing.
Continuing with the game stats, and here is not a surprise; Raekwon McMillan (8 tackles) again led the team in tackles. Tyquan Lewis is really morphing into “The Other End”, since he had 5 tackles; 2.5 TFL’s including 2 sacks. He is not suffering from whatever attention is being paid to Bosa.
As well as they played, and despite the 28 points, I think the defense did play quite well, the brain freeze at the end of the first half and the initial 3rd quarter series were a concern. My wife and I were at a Buffalo waterfront bistro Saturday afternoon and I was keeping tabs on the Buckeyes. When I told my wife that Maryland, who was about to fire their coach, had just tied OSU at 21 she said: “Maybe he (Edsall) should keep his job.”
Well, yeah. If Silver Bullets were making an Edsall offense look good..
Offense
The offense did pretty well with their 49 points. It was against Maryland.. big deal.
What was impressive was their Red Zone offense. This was an area that Urban wanted to address, and it seems that he did. The anointment of JT Barrett as The Red Zone Quarterback obviously paid huge dividends. The Buckeyes were in the RZ 6 times and scored 6 TD’s. Astounding. Evidently, when you put a talented, multidimensional QB on the field, good things happen.
Rushing
Don’t let the feel-good 182 yards rushing lull you into thinking that OSU has the running game figured out. They don’t. JT Barrett did the rushing damage (62 yd, 3 TD, 5.0 ypc). Elliott couldn’t get anything going, especially in the first half. He had 11 carries for 25 yards in the half. It’s tough to get a play-action game going when your running game is not-so-good. He did liven things up with 7 carries/77 yards in the 2nd half, but this offense needs to assert Ezekiel earlier rather than later.
Playcalling
The coaching staff did a great job of involving Zeke as a receiver this game. He had 6 receptions for 47 yards. Total yards are total yards. This is good “asset” management. It was encouraging to see Braxton be integrated productively into the offense. First, Brax as a receiver, either set as WR or slot is a match-up advantage to OSU. Brax as ‘wildcat’ is useless, so we seem to be making progress. And, OSU needs to keep throwing to Brax; the more game reps he get the more comfortable he’ll be. We’ll need that “comfort” as the season rolls along.
Other
As much as I’ve bitched about coaching this season, I need to tip my hat to Urban Meyer this week. His “wrinkle” of a multi-threat QB in the red zone was a masterstroke. Whether JT gets an expanded role this season is still up in the air, but this JT=RZ QB worked very well. Now, opposing defense have to work around that scenario.
Although I feel this is a veteran team, there seems to be a bit of a “football” learning curve with these guys. Urban may have gotten them over the curve this past week. As you know, he was displeased with OSU’s red zone offense and their turnovers. I think that we all were, so Urban was not alone. Urban wanted to “work on it” this week, and the results are in. Ohio State was in the red zone 6 times and scored 6 touchdowns. Prior to this game, OSU was 6-16 (38%) in red zone touchdowns. So, one game doubled their red zone TD’s. Urban was also felt the need to address OSU’s issues with turnovers. Going into the Maryland game, the Buckeyes had ceded 7 interceptions and 6 lost fumbles. Coming out of the Maryland game, the offense had the same stats. No turnovers for this game went a long way to extend Ohio State’s dominance. The Buckeyes still had 6 penalties for 45 assessed yards, so there is still something to work on this week.
A big game is upcoming with PSU coming to The Shoe Saturday night. Go Buckeyes!
The post 2nd Thoughts: Ohio State Passes by Maryland, 49-28 appeared first on The Buckeye Battle Cry: Ohio State News and Commentary.
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Ken via our good friends at Buckeye Battle Cry
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Well, that finished a lot better than it started. And “than it started” refers up through early in the 3rd quarter. The Buckeyes hosted Maryland as their Homecoming offering, and significantly outplayed the Terrapins in the last quarter and a half to pull away with a 49-28 win on Saturday. There were stretches of sketchy play (end of 1st half, beginning of 2nd half), some stretches of great play (whenever Ezekiel Elliott and JT Barrett touched the ball) and some stretches “meh” play (everything else). Last week, I thought the offense regressed, forget the score. This week, the team made a step forward with cohesiveness and with their situational play.
So, here we go…
Special Teams
Cam & Co averaged 55 yd/46 net on only 3 punts. Not to go all “Tresselball”, but if you can flip half of the field per punt, you are getting your team out of a potentially sticky situation.
On to kicking. Field goals were 0-1. Not much to say here than Neurenberger must not be up to snuff in practice. This needs to get resolved. There will be a game, or two, where a FG will mean something. Kickoffs? Willoughby kicked off 8 times and had 4 touch-backs. The coverage team limited Maryland’s Will Likely to 16 yards per return. This was a big “win” for the Buckeyes. Kudos to whoever the Special Teams coach is…
Defense
The defensive effort was overall pretty good, all things considered. Of the 28 points allowed; 7 were on a blown assignment on DJ Moore’s 52 yd TD reception, 7 were on a total brain freeze by the defense on Hills’ TD with less than a minute remaining in the first half, and another 7 points with a garbage time TD by Wes Brown with < 1 minute in the game. Notice that half of Maryland’s points were ceded with less than a minute to play in each half. The defense really needs to maintain focus for a full 60 minutes. Lapses like this may be OK against Maryland, but from here on out, they could be game-costing.
Continuing with the game stats, and here is not a surprise; Raekwon McMillan (8 tackles) again led the team in tackles. Tyquan Lewis is really morphing into “The Other End”, since he had 5 tackles; 2.5 TFL’s including 2 sacks. He is not suffering from whatever attention is being paid to Bosa.
As well as they played, and despite the 28 points, I think the defense did play quite well, the brain freeze at the end of the first half and the initial 3rd quarter series were a concern. My wife and I were at a Buffalo waterfront bistro Saturday afternoon and I was keeping tabs on the Buckeyes. When I told my wife that Maryland, who was about to fire their coach, had just tied OSU at 21 she said: “Maybe he (Edsall) should keep his job.”
Well, yeah. If Silver Bullets were making an Edsall offense look good..
Offense
The offense did pretty well with their 49 points. It was against Maryland.. big deal.
What was impressive was their Red Zone offense. This was an area that Urban wanted to address, and it seems that he did. The anointment of JT Barrett as The Red Zone Quarterback obviously paid huge dividends. The Buckeyes were in the RZ 6 times and scored 6 TD’s. Astounding. Evidently, when you put a talented, multidimensional QB on the field, good things happen.
Rushing
Don’t let the feel-good 182 yards rushing lull you into thinking that OSU has the running game figured out. They don’t. JT Barrett did the rushing damage (62 yd, 3 TD, 5.0 ypc). Elliott couldn’t get anything going, especially in the first half. He had 11 carries for 25 yards in the half. It’s tough to get a play-action game going when your running game is not-so-good. He did liven things up with 7 carries/77 yards in the 2nd half, but this offense needs to assert Ezekiel earlier rather than later.
Playcalling
The coaching staff did a great job of involving Zeke as a receiver this game. He had 6 receptions for 47 yards. Total yards are total yards. This is good “asset” management. It was encouraging to see Braxton be integrated productively into the offense. First, Brax as a receiver, either set as WR or slot is a match-up advantage to OSU. Brax as ‘wildcat’ is useless, so we seem to be making progress. And, OSU needs to keep throwing to Brax; the more game reps he get the more comfortable he’ll be. We’ll need that “comfort” as the season rolls along.
Other
As much as I’ve bitched about coaching this season, I need to tip my hat to Urban Meyer this week. His “wrinkle” of a multi-threat QB in the red zone was a masterstroke. Whether JT gets an expanded role this season is still up in the air, but this JT=RZ QB worked very well. Now, opposing defense have to work around that scenario.
Although I feel this is a veteran team, there seems to be a bit of a “football” learning curve with these guys. Urban may have gotten them over the curve this past week. As you know, he was displeased with OSU’s red zone offense and their turnovers. I think that we all were, so Urban was not alone. Urban wanted to “work on it” this week, and the results are in. Ohio State was in the red zone 6 times and scored 6 touchdowns. Prior to this game, OSU was 6-16 (38%) in red zone touchdowns. So, one game doubled their red zone TD’s. Urban was also felt the need to address OSU’s issues with turnovers. Going into the Maryland game, the Buckeyes had ceded 7 interceptions and 6 lost fumbles. Coming out of the Maryland game, the offense had the same stats. No turnovers for this game went a long way to extend Ohio State’s dominance. The Buckeyes still had 6 penalties for 45 assessed yards, so there is still something to work on this week.
A big game is upcoming with PSU coming to The Shoe Saturday night. Go Buckeyes!
The post 2nd Thoughts: Ohio State Passes by Maryland, 49-28 appeared first on The Buckeye Battle Cry: Ohio State News and Commentary.
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