Doing a lot more rewatching now while the Great Waffling occurs over B10 football. This game was certainly a sign of things to come.
A team full of great players and athletes that had about 5 huge plays and sputtered the rest of the night. Honestly, as much as it might hurt, this is the season that I want more insight into. I really want to know the reasoning behind Beck and Warriner and how Meyer thought the offense could run smoothly with 2 over promoted position coaches and a very talented but raw pro-style QB.
This was the season in one game.
Ezekiel Elliott had 11 carries. 11. Totally forgot that. Dude had just run for ~700 yards in the 3 biggest games. Michael Thomas only had 2 catches. Curtis Samuel had 3 touches. But Jones had 13 carries. I think part of that was due to the option being run against the bear front, but those stats remain unforgivable. And much of the same magical thinking kept being replicated all year.
The best way I can describe the offensive gameplan for this game and the whole season is hopeful. The WR depth was shockingly bad, so they plugged in a raw QB that struggled with a short and intermediate passing game and hoped he'd make a play downfield. And most of the time he couldn't.
The frustrating thing is though, we still saw sparks that showed why they could play with and beat any team in the country. Soundly. I almost understand why Meyer was tempted to make the decisions he did. He knew he had a hammer in Elliott and how dynamic Miller, Samuel and Marshall were. The highlight plays against VaTech probably reinforced his decisions in his mind. Miller was going to be a Heisman candidate and Jones would figure it out.
Problem is, you can only run QB power and pop passes so many times before the defense figures it out. And they never got past that in the planning stage.