Through the first seven games of the season, Ohio State has established that it’s not the most dominating team in college football history. It sounds silly, but the expectations before the season started were so high that’s how the team was being measured.
Still, the Buckeyes now stand at 7-0, and last night they hung a pretty convincing win on Penn State, beating the Nittany Lions 38-10. And if you are an Ohio State fan, you can be forgiven for looking for little signs that the team is improving. I think the signs are there.
Offensively, the Buckeyes seem to be moving toward making J.T. Barrett the starting quarterback. The more he plays, the better the offense performs. Cardale Jones is a fine player with a terrific arm, but with Barrett at the helm the Buckeyes simply seem more fluid, more confident, and more multi-dimensional — and Barrett has an uncanny knack for finding the first-down marker and keeping drives alive. With Barrett playing increasing minutes, the Buckeyes have now gone two games without drive-killing turnovers and are turning red zone appearances into touchdowns. And last night, they did it all against a pretty good Penn State defense that features lots of talent.
But we are talking baby steps here, and there are still steps to be made on offense. Last night, the Buckeyes racked up more than 300 yards on the ground, with both Barrett and Ezekiel Elliott posting more than 100 yards gained, but the passing game suffered. If Ohio State hopes to compete with the elite, it can’t play with one hand tied behind its back.
On defense, the situation is more difficult to assess. Joey Bosa and the defensive line did a good job of rushing the passer and physically dominating Christian Hackenberg, when the game was on the line they held Penn State short on a key fourth down, and they forced a turnover that put the game away — but there were lots of negatives. The D was gashed on the ground and made Saquon Barkley look like the second coming of Jim Brown, showed some really poor tackling and pass defense techniques, and seemed to have scheme failures where Penn State runners were 10 yards downfield before a tackler appeared. All of this should be concerning, even after a convincing win. Penn State couldn’t capitalize on these weaknesses, but there are teams from The State Up North who will unless Ohio State gets those problems fixed.
With the “Black Out” and uniform dust-up behind us, let’s focus on some football and continuing improvement and see what this team can really do.
Webner House 