COLUMBUS — Some pregame thoughts on Ohio State’s matchup with Texas after watching the season openers for the Buckeyes and the Longhorns.
• Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said this week that he’s expecting Ohio State to look different on Saturday night than they did against Ball State.
“I promise you, what they ran last week against Ball State, we’re not going to get,” he said.
That’s especially true of the OSU defense, which was incredibly vanilla and played man coverage on nearly half of its snaps. That won’t happen against Texas.
But it applies to the OSU offense, too. Arthur Smith showed some under-center looks in the opener, including on Jeremiah Smith’s 48-yard touchdown catch, but there’s more to unwrap there, and I’d be surprised if it didn’t show up against the Longhorns. Ohio State’s starters ran only 14.9 percent of their 47 snaps from under center against Ball State. Expect that percentage to be higher against Texas. Last season, the Buckeyes were under center 16.4 percent of the time. That was the highest mark of the Day era. My prediction is that Smith will have this offense under center more than that, perhaps pushing closer to 30 percent of the time.