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Gotta love West's performance against UW whose strength has been their rush defense. Great vision, good timing, made people miss, ran over guys. Really think that he and Jackson are our best runners. And Jackson is becoming a weapon in the passing game as well. These guys give us the best chance to move the chains.
West carried the ball nine times for 55 yards against Wisconsin, easily the Buckeyes’ most productive rusher at six yards per carry. Advanced stats provided by Pro Football Focus contextualize his performance even further, however. In just 21 carries this season, West has forced six missed tackles. That’s as many as James Peoples has in his 40 carries at running back and tripling what CJ Donaldson has done in 60 carries. Donaldson’s job is more to run tacklers over than to make them miss, but it is still telling that West had more forced missed tackles against the Badgers (three) than Donaldson has had all year (two).
Some inside baseball from a reporter who’s covered Day his entire head coaching career: You can always tell a player’s stock is seriously rising with the coach when he references specific plays. Could the freshman West be emerging as the Buckeyes’ No. 2 back behind fellow freshman Bo Jackson?
“I got to watch the runs on the coach's copy,” Day said after the win. “But on the iPad on the sideline, two runs I thought were good. One for seven (yards) and I forget what the other one was for (14 yards). But he hit them good. I just kind of like the way. And then there was two guys in the hole that he made miss. So good sign for a young back. So we'll kind of see what it looks like and see where we're going from here.”
Isaiah West made a serious case for more usage in Ohio State's backfield during what was otherwise an aerial assault, but the Buckeyes have evaluating to do at right guard.