NEO High School Football Week 3: Top teams fall and a new No. 1
September 14, 2015Will the Browns be ready to start the season next week?
September 14, 2015At times the Ohio State Buckeyes offense may have looked ugly, but they did what they had to do in beating the the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors. The defense on the other hand, played about as well as it could in the 38-0 shutout.
Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer reflected on the Buckeyes play in the shutout during his postgame press conference. He said the Buckeyes struggled against Hawaii’s 3-4 defense, but also made it clear that Ohio State must improve against that style of defense as the season goes on.
“It’s that 3-4 defense, and we have not executed greatly against it,” Meyer said. “So we’re going to go back to the drawing board, because we’ll see that three or four times. Remember, Indiana did that same thing last year. And they outschemed us a little bit. We checked the protection, and then they come the other way. And they kind of screwed with our offensive line a little bit. But we just have to get better.”
One of the most talked about topics involving the Buckeyes offense on Saturday was Meyer’s decision to sub in J.T. Barrett at quarterback in place of Cardale Jones. It wasn’t that Jones was playing badly, but the Ohio State offense seemed to need a lift. Meyer was hoping that Barrett could bring the spark that they need, and he just wanted to get Barrett some playing time, which he was planning on doing anyway.
“I wanted to throw them both,” said Meyer. “J.T. had 15 opportunities to throw the ball; Cardale, 18. That doesn’t include the pressures and the scrambles. Because we did not protect very well today. We have to get that fixed.”
Although he wants to give both quarterbacks some snaps, Meyer said that he hasn’t handled the quarterback situation as well as he has wanted to.
“I think it was pretty good the first game. Still not perfect. So I think we just — a lot of us, it’s also — [offensive line coach/offensive coordinator] Ed Warinner down on the field, we’ve got to really get in sync a little bit better,” Meyer said.
Obviously, if the offensive line is struggling, it will affect how the entire offense plays. On Saturday, Ohio State’s o-line struggled for the majority of the game, and it wasn’t a coincidence that the Buckeyes offense was running in mud as well.
Even with Ohio State’s struggles offensively, the defense was superb. They not only shut out the Rainbow Warriors, but they held Hawaii to just 165 yards, including 85 through the air. It was the first time the Warriors have been held under 100 passing yards since 1998, a span of 213 games.
Whether it was the return of All-American Joey Bosa, who received plenty of attention from Hawaii’s offensive line, from suspension, or just Ohio State’s defensive scheme, the defense was magnificent. Meyer was pleased with how the defense played on Saturday.
“I thought they played great. They created turnovers. We scored on defense. Short field a couple times. So we’ve got a lot of work to do in some other areas,” Meyer said.
Safety Vonn Bell, who had three tackles, one fumble recovery, one interception, and a touchdown, was one of the players spotlighted by Meyer.
“Great player. Really good tackler,” said Meyer of Bell. “We’re tackling pretty good on defense. And I don’t think the [second team] went in there and tackled particularly well. But I think Vonn Bell caught my eye. I’ll let you know more. I didn’t watch much defense, to be honest with you. I was working on the other side.”
The Buckeyes’ game at Virginia Tech was just four and a half days before they hosted Hawaii, and some supposed that that was why the offense had struggled at times, especially the offensive line. Meyer, however, put those excuses to rest.
“I think that’s a very solid excuse, one that’s not allowed,” said Meyer. “I made that clear down there. I mean, that’s good, that’s good to bring that up and say that’s the reason we didn’t play necessarily well on the offensive line. You’ll never hear [me say] that. If I do, then that coach has got a problem and that player has got a problem. That’s not execution. That takes away from [Hawaii]. I would never want to disrespect that crew that came in here and played their tails off.
“That [3-4] is one of those defensive fronts [that gives us problems],” Meyer went on. “The whole time, it’s just moving, and we could never get our hands on them. And someone said back to basics: Our basics are not just north/south, we’re east/west as well. But we weren’t hitting it like we should. So we’ll get better.”
No matter who played good or bad, the Buckeyes shut out the Rainbow Warriors and improved to 2-0, which was the most important thing for Meyer.
2 Comments
Maybe it was mercy….it’s hard to beat up on a bunch of guys wearing rainbows?
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