The Browns get plastered by the Jets – WFNY Podcast – 2015-09-13
September 14, 2015NEO High School Football Week 3: Top teams fall and a new No. 1
September 14, 2015The Ohio State Buckeyes may have shut out the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors on Saturday, but when reflecting on the game, there are plenty of good things, bad things, and ugly things to discuss. Let’s dig in.
The Good
The Defense
I mean, with the shutout, this one was an easy choice. But, the defense also did something to the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors that hasn’t been done since 1998 (213 games ago) in holding them to under 100 passing yards. Along with allowing just 85 yards through the air, the defense also allowed just 80 yards on the ground.
The Buckeyes allowed Hawaii to convert just 2-of-14 third downs, to go along with just 1-of-2 fourth downs. They also kept the Rainbow Warriors out of the red zone the entire game—very impressive. The defensive unit racked up four sacks, five tackles for loss, a forced fumble, two fumble recoveries, eight pass breakups, and even accounted for a touchdown (a pick six) in the shutout.
Ezekiel Elliott
When doesn’t this All-American running back play well? Even with the offense struggling at times, Elliott held it together and finished the game with 27 carries for 112 yards and three touchdowns.
Saturday marked the fifth game in his six games that the junior has recorded at least two rushing touchdowns. The game also represented the seventh consecutive game and his twelfth game in his college career that Elliott ran for over 100 yards.
Vonn Bell
Bell not only helped the defense make “the good” list, but he had one of his best games of his career so far at Ohio State.
The safety had an interception, but he also ended with three tackles, one fumble recovery, one interception, and even a touchdown (pick six). Bell’s second quarter interception was his first of the season and eighth of his carer, to combine with his second career fumble recovery. Also, his three pass breakups were a career high as well.
The junior was one of the main reasons why the Buckeyes didn’t allow Hawaii to score a single point on Saturday.
Braxton Miller
He may not have had as many touches as he did in the season opener at Virginia Tech, but Miller still brought another dimension to the game, something that was needed for Ohio State’s struggling offense on Saturday.
Finishing with eight carries for 61 yards to go along with two catches for 16 yards, the senior excelled in the “wildcat” spot behind center. When the Buckeyes offense stalled, it seemed as though Miller was able to revitalize them at times.
Red zone offense
The Buckeyes offense may have struggled on Saturday, something that doesn’t happen much under the helm of Urban Meyer, but their red-zone offense was very good. On five red-zone chances, Ohio State converted four for touchdowns and another for a field goal.
The Bad
The Quarterbacks
For the first time in 25 games, the Buckeyes did not have a passing touchdown on Saturday.
The offensive line’s struggles may have contributed to Cardale Jones and J.T. Barrett’s mediocre play, but they combined to throw for just 181 yards, while converting 20-of-33 passes.
The Kicking game
After missing his only attempt in the season opener at Virginia Tech, Jack Willoughby converted his only attempt on Saturday, a 20-yard field goal.
But, that wasn’t the problem. For Ohio State’s first field goal attempt of the game, punter and holder Cam Johnston couldn’t secure the hold, leading to a turnover on downs and Ohio State not being able to get any points from a drive.
The Ugly
The offensive line
One of the main reasons for Ohio State’s struggles on offense on Saturday, the offensive line played one of the worst games I have seen them play since their last loss – at home to Virginia Tech in 2014.
Whether it was the 3-4 scheme used by Hawaii—which for some reason the Buckeyes seem to struggle against—or maybe it was just the fact that the five offensive linemen just all had an off day, they didn’t allow Cardale Jones or J.T. Barrett too have much time in the pocket.
I don’t see a performance like this from the offensive line happening again in 2015.
12 Comments
Vonn Bell should have had two, and could have had 3 picks. He played well. Raekwon and Perry, too. But it’s hard to single out just one guy on that defense. They looked great.
This team sorely misses Tom Herman. Some of the play calls for both of these games have been head-scratching weirdness, seemingly for the sake of weirdness. There does not appear to be any governing philosophy (stupid word, but it’s what everyone says, so I’ll go with it) to the offensive strategy; it’s just a grab-bag of weirdness, every play. I hope they get this in order by the time we play Minnesota, MSU, State Penn, and Fichigan.
Wow. So fun to find the single thing to complain about with a team that just won 38-0.
Compounding this issue; Cardale Jones.
What he did against Wis, Bama and Oregon last year was magical and I fear just that.
Being in the Shoe yesterday I made choice of keying in on him for each snap. My analysis: Dude hasn’t met the homerun ball he hasn’t liked and you can’t run option with Zeke and him together to get those DE/DB’s to bite in on the corners and create mismatches outside.
The line looked very ugly but he wasn’t doing them ANY favors. Crossing routes, underneath routes, saftey valves in the flat were ignored left and right as he was way to content to sit and hope Devon was going to magically appear streaking down the sideline.
That led to him being flushed and flustered more than he had to.
It was the shortest college week turnaround ever and I blame everyone’s hangover on that, but I’m not sure Cardale holds the starting job much longer.
Also, yes….this team has a bad day and wins 38-0. I can live with this.
I agree on the play calling hopefully it improves as the season progresses.
I’ll agree with that. I’ve been a proponent of Cardale as starting QB since the day after the Oregon game, but he certainly hasn’t impressed. I’m curious how much of it has to do with the play calling. The homerun ball was really effective at the end of last season, but it was also very strategically set up and called. It seems that it’s the go-to play this year; but I’m not sure if that’s the OC (Beck? Who’s calling the plays?) or Cardale.
And in Cardale’s defense, JT also looked horrible Saturday, which points to my biggest fear with him: He needs whole games to get up to speed and long-term rhythm. If we’re going to go with JT, we need to go with JT now. Can’t wait until the conference season starts.
It was very setup last year.
First down: Counter Trey
Second down: Jet Sweep
Third down: SPENCER GO DEEP.
All three of those plays were scoring plays Herman used perfectly in rhythm.
JT’s game was very disappointing for me because I was expecting him to come in and work that intermediary game / option play with Zeke to get Hawaii coming in and then start to work to Mike T outside. He did that in the first series and because it didn’t result in a score I fear he then started pressing because he feels Cardale on the sideline.
He’s the more composed leader of the two but I’m getting nervous that after having an embarrassment of riches at Qb we are setting ourselves up for the “if you’ve got 2 QB’s you dont have one” adage.
All of this.
Last thought on the play calling: It seems to me that the whoever is calling plays is just trying too hard to replicate on the field what we saw in the last 3 games last year, without actually doing the hard work of study and planning before the teams take the field.
“Hey, remember when Cardale pounded the ‘Bama and Oregon defenses into submission with his running, and how he then killed him with his 12-gauge? Yeah, that was sweet. Ima do that again.” (Forgetting that Herman developed those plans specifically based on the situations the team was in at the time. Cardale ran last year largely because he had to, and the specific running plays were set up as a complementary punch to the abuse Elliott was already administering. Those conditions do not, and have not, existed in this season yet.)
After watching the Browns yesterday, there is no aspect of the Buckeyes performance that I would call bad or ugly. The Browns have redefined these terms, and nobody that wins a game 38-0 comes remotely close to meeting those criteria.
Questioning play-calling in a vacuum is dumb, without film preparation it’s worse. It is dictated by defensive alignment, among other things. You can’t run an inside zone play if there are 2 free tacklers. Long-developing pass plays can’t go against blitzes you are struggling to protect against. Most of our interior run plays rely on blockers climbing to the linebacker level. There are ways to prevent that, but it exposes other areas — the weird areas. Braxton’s first TD vs. Tech was the direct result of running the same action and dumping to Zeke for easy first downs. It was a counter of those. A counter doesn’t work without a theme that has become familiar. Herman was and is great, but with or without Herman, three coaches with headsets are making the calls. The OC title is ceremonial.
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Also, we need to stop kicking the ball out of bounds on kickoffs. It’s not that hard…