COLUMBUS — Ohio State (3-1) goes back on the road this week for its first trip to Iowa since 2017. The Hawkeyes are coming off an improbable win against Michigan last week. Kinnick Stadium makes everyone feel nervous.
Here are five late-week thoughts about the Buckeyes …
1. I tried to ask Ohio State offensive coordinator Arthur Smith about the run game on Wednesday night. I asked what he’s liked so far and where he’d like to see improvement. While saying that everything is a work in progress, Smith went out of his way to make the point that OSU’s surface-level rushing stats don’t tell the whole story.
“Without getting into too much scheme, if you look at the run efficiency, you can bundle statistics up, but you need to really look at what’s going on in the called runs when we’re trying to take advantage of things,” Smith said.
He was reiterating a point Ryan Day has made a few times: anyone taking inventory of this rushing attack needs to account for times when a run is called, but the play ends up being a pass. For an NFL guy, Smith has featured run-pass options (considered by some more of a college concept) quite a bit through four games calling plays for the Buckeyes.
It’s hard to track RPOs accurately because what looks like one might just be a called pass. What you track as a pass could’ve started as a run that changed pre-snap. It’s foggy. For instance, Sports Info Solutions says Julian Sayin has used an RPO on 14 percent of his attempts this year, slightly lower than 15 percent last year. Anecdotally, it feels like Ohio State is using RPOs more this year than they have in any previous season of Day’s tenure.
I tried to track it for the Illinois game. Here’s what I came up with:
Ohio State’s rushing attempts on called runs (excluding scrambles, which are called passes) netted 134 yards and one touchdown on 27 carries.
I counted what looked like nine run-pass options that netted 72 yards and two touchdowns.
Altogether, on called runs that ended with either a hand-off or Sayin pulling the ball for a throw, Ohio State picked up 206 yards and three touchdowns on 36 plays. That 5.7-yard-per-play average looks a little better than the 4.7 yards per carry OSU officially registered.
This is what Smith means when he says the efficiency on called runs is not exactly what it seems. I’m not sure that makes anyone feel better when they see OSU run it for no gain because of a running back misread or a missed block from an offensive lineman or tight end, but this is how it’s viewed in-house when the staff tracks rushing efficiency.
I would expect to continue seeing these looks. Sayin operates them well. It’s a way to get quick, often easy throws to receivers (namely Jeremiah Smith), and it helps protect what is, at best, probably just an above-average rushing attack.
2. I asked Day on Tuesday about how his defense is communicating, and his response boiled down to “not good enough.”