← The Bill and Doug Show: Ohio State Football Talk
The Bill and Doug Show: Ohio State Football Talk
Is Ohio State's rushing attack ready for Big Ten play?
00:21:22
We have three games of data on Ohio State's rushing attack, and the Buckeyes are coming off their best rushing performance of the season against Ohio.
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- [00:01]
A
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- [01:21]
B
Happy Monday morning to you. Welcome back to the Bill and Duck Show. I'm Bill Landis solo again for a Monday rewatch after Ohio State's 37. 9 win against the Ohio Bobcats out of the Mac. We've talked a lot about this game kind of granularly both on the post game show that we did on YouTube after the game on Saturday night. Thank you to those of you who tuned in with us there and then again on the Sunday Sound off show that we did for our Substack subscribers. Those usually drop on Sunday afternoons. Bill and Doug osu.substack.com if you want to give that a shot. Also on Monday written re watch piece piece to kind of accompany what we do here on the YouTube channel on Monday. Pretty in depth, you know, videos, diagrams, some, some information that I chart throughout the season is included in that and this will not be as granular. I don't, I don't think I, I want to take kind of inventory of Ohio State's rushing attack after three games. Kind of see what it's been, where it can be going. Some of the challenges I think that lie ahead too with what Ohio State has on the schedule. There's a, there's a interesting stretch of games coming up. Ryan Day called it challenging. I I think you could reasonably call it a pretty challenging stretch when you think about having to go on the road to Washington in two weeks. Ohio State is off this week, goes to Washington in two weeks. Washington, which thus far is 2, 0. Let's play Washington State this week and hasn't lost the game at home since 2001 or 2001, 2021. And after that you come home and play a Minnesota team that has some stuff to it just lost to Cal. I'm not going to try to make Minnesota sound better than it actually is, but you know, it's a Big Ten game against the physical Minnesota team. Then you have Illinois on the road, Wisconsin on the road before you're off again and start to think about getting ready to play Penn State. And that can be, I think, a pretty grueling stretch. It's certainly a ramp up from what Ohio State has faced these last two weeks against Grambling and against Ohio over the weekend. So it's Big Ten play, man. I think you guys know what that is. I don't have to have to belabor that point. So I wanted to see where Ohio State was running, running the football, how we feel about it thus far coming out of this Ohio game, which was by far I think Ohio State's best rushing performance of the season. Really only two games to take into consideration because I'm just not, I'm not going to count a whole lot of what we saw against scrambling because of just how overmatched Grambling was. So before we get to that, a couple things. One, if you're looking for red zone talk, which I, I understand post game show, we talked about it. The substack show on Sunday, we talked about it. We will probably talk about it more later this week. We are scheduled to talk to Ryan Day on Tuesday as well as Brian Hartline and Matt Patricia and with Day and Heartline, I would assume that the bulk of the conversation will be about what Ohio State was not able to do in the red zone against Ohio coming up empty on three, technically four of sick of, of six trips was really more like three of five trips. But either way not enough touchdowns were scored in that game as we all know. So we've, we've talked about that a lot. I'm not going to like talk specifically about that here, although some of what I will talk about here, you know, applies to the red zone because you have to run the ball well in the red zone. But if you're looking for any of that again postgame show on this YouTube channel substack show that went up on Sunday, if you are a subscriber, if you're not. You can check us out for, I think you get a free trial for like seven days, but then it's 999.99amonth after that. Bill and Doug. Osu.substack.com Plenty of red zone talk there and probably more coming this week. And I think Tuesday you'll get Doug solo, I believe, talking about Ohio State's defense. It's an off week. It's a kind of a good time to pull back, see how things are going, see where things can get better. So, you know, I, I have talked about the offense the last two weeks here on this or last week and now this week on this Monday show. Doug's gonna talk about the defense a little bit on Tuesday and try to put that into a national context. But. All right, let's talk about Ohio State's rushing attack. Ohio State, as I speak to you, recording this on a Sunday evening as JJ McCarthy's playing football, my television and currently losing, you're listening to it on a Monday. Ohio State ranks 45th in the country. 192 rushing yards per game. That is brought down mightily by the 77 that it had against Texas and then enhanced these last two weeks by the 200 and my own handwriting, 74 it had against scrambling and 225 they had against Ohio. I think yards per carry is probably something better to look at than overall rushing yards per game because teams have identities and sometimes they don't run the ball enough to be among the national leaders, among teams that run the ball a lot, if not all the time. So yards per carry, Ohio State is number 28 in the country at 5.59 yards per carry compared to last year was, you know, it was 4.99. That's his full season's body of work. I don't want to pretend because this rushing attack is better through three games that it will be better than the rushing attack Ohio State had last year. I think we know how good they were, especially in big spots running the ball and how good those running backs were last year. And this, this group has a lot to prove, I think, to be compared to that. But if you just look at the numbers, slightly better than this year about actually on pace where, with where, where 20, 24 was at this point in that season. Again, Texas, not great, 2.6 yards, 2.26 yards per carry in that game, 7.21 against Grambling, 7.26. So slightly better against Ohio. I was trying to look at the last time Ohio State has had back to back games where it's averaged more than 7 yards per carry. It actually happened last year in September when Ohio State did it against Western Michigan and Marshall. Prior to that, it hasn't happened since 2016. Again, I, I'm not making too much of that. You just kind of look for trends. That was Grambling State in Ohio. So you know, take, take it for what it's worth. But I think it's been good at the very least to see Ohio State iron some stuff out with this rushing attack. I, I figure stuff out is probably too strong of a term because we can't really say that anything has been definitively solved, figured out, repurposed, directed, whatever, in the right way until Ohio State starts playing some, some better competition again. And that'll, that'll happen here soon. I'll tell you about these run defenses in a minute that Ohio State is about to face. But to see some explosivity with the run game the last two weeks has been good. To see Bo Jackson emerge, I think is a guy, in my opinion, he's RB1. I think in a lot of people's opinions he's RB1. Whether or not Ohio State ever anoints him RB1, it remains to be seen. But I think the fact that he was on the field in the first half against Ohio after doing what he did sort of in garbage time against Grambling and flashing the way he did, is an indication of his, what his role in the offense is going to be moving forward, how Ohio State views him moving forward. Because I, I will be honest, I was not super confident that that game against Grambling was going to lead to an immediate increased role in this game against Ohio. I figured Jackson would probably play against Ohio if Ohio State found itself up by a couple of scores in the second half. You know, like, like blowout, blowout territory. That didn't happen clearly because the game got, got kind of wonky. But it didn't matter because Ohio State wasn't waiting for that to happen anyway. They put Bo Jackson out there on the third drive of the game. He was a part of the offense for the entire game, both as a running back or a ball carrier and a receiver. Explosive as a ball carrier. I, I think shifty as a receiver in a way that I thought was pretty interesting. I know that there are a lot of people wondering about the production of the slot receiver position in this offense. While Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate are off to incredible starts this season, you would like to see a dependable slash dangerous looking third receiving option emerge. The best candidate for that in my opinion remains Max Claire at tight end. But maybe it's Bo Jackson. He looked like a pretty good receiver on the couple of touches he got in the passing game.
- [10:04]
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- [11:21]
B
If you look at it from a personnel standpoint, right like the, like the running backs, the guys carrying the ball. I do think Ohio State comes out of the off week in a spot where they're gonna try to get three guys work, and that now includes Bo Jackson, it includes James Peoples, and includes CJ Donaldson. I thought James Peoples played better against Grambling because everybody did, but then he came back against Ohio and continued to play well. I think maybe some things are slowing down for him. He's a little more explosive, looks a little more decisive. Some of the zone runs in particular, like outside zone, seem to suit James Peoples maybe a little better than some of the inside runs that he was perhaps struggling with a bit against Texas. I also want to be cognizant of that being a pretty big spot for a guy who's never played much in the way of high leverage snaps before. So that you know if he was not 100 what he's going to be in that game. I think it's understandable, but it's been good to see him build some momentum here these last two weeks. We'll see what that looks like moving forward I would say that CJ Donaldson is not quite in the same position. I said this on the substack show. I'll share it with you guys here. His. His numbers in terms of breaking tackles, making guys miss are a little troubling. If you look at Pro Football Focus, he has one missed tackle force this year. If you think of it by percentages or just like called Sports Info Solutions that has a broken, broken tackle slash, missed tackle percentage. His is 4% for his career at West Virginia. It was like in the neighborhood of 14, 15% last year. Quinshot Junkins was 14 last year. Travion Henderson was 22% right now, small sample size, Bo Jackson's 33%. But James Peoples is above 20%. Right like that. That is somewhere between probably 13 and 20 is where you want to be. And obviously closer to 20 the. The better and anything higher than that is ridiculous. C.J. donaldson's not doing it right now. I thought one of the red zone drives that Ohio State stalled out on was basically a direct result of CJ Donaldson's inability to break tackles. And he is the guy that's gotten the most red zone work right now. You know, one of the things that came out of the game is that Bo Jackson did not get a red zone touch. Maybe that's something we talk more about this week with the coaches. But if Donaldson, who is the bigger back, who is the most experienced back, is the guy that they're going to rely upon in those situations, he's gotta run a little harder. He's gotta. He's got to run through tackles, he's got to stop running to contact. I think as much and, and find creases, lanes, green space to. To help Ohio State finish drives with the touchdowns that it needs to score. But you know, I think. I think Jackson's in a good spot. I think people's is. Is getting to a better spot. And Donaldson, the guy is the guy to me that seems like he's still searching a little bit. The good news is, I guess is that if you're Ohio State, you don't have to wholly rely or solely rely or even sort of like predominantly rely on the guy who's searching for it a little bit on the road at Washington's a big spot. But I think Bo Jackson will get touches in that game. Now with, with. I was. I was unsure of that. I wondered if maybe they would wait till after that game to get him involved with the offense. But they put him out there early against Ohio. I think that means he's part of this now, so I think he'll be part of the plan. What Ohio State plays against Washington and I, I like him a lot, although people like him too. He's, he's explosive. He's. He's got good vision, he's got really good contact balance. He's got the home run ability that I actually don't even think James Peoples has. But I think James Peoples is a good running back. So if those guys end up being maybe your main two and Donaldson hopefully can be like a situational hammer for you, I think that's pretty good. We'll see how that materializes from a schematic standpoint. And I'm not going to like try to get too in the weeds here, but I just think it's interesting to watch a run game evolve and what teams over time choose to kind of hang their hat on. And, and that is always, I think, a bit of a fact finding mission for a team as it comes into the season. There have been seasons really prior to last year and Chip Kelly's arrival. Ohio State has been heavy, heavy zone running team, inside zone, outside zone, a lot of outside zone. Chip Kelly arrived last year and give credit where it's due, I think, I think with Justin Fry, who had been on Chip Kelly's UCLA staff before he came to Ohio State, mixed in some of, you know, more gap schemes, just a, a little bit more run game variety. And then Chip Kelly really kind of jazzed it up last year with some of the stuff he was doing. I have found it encouraging through three games that with a new run game coordinator and Tyler Bowen that that variety has mostly remained in place. It doesn't all look exactly the same. But if you think of variety as like, you know, boiled down to its base level as a balance between zone scheme and run scheme and formational decisions and things like that, I actually think the run game balance has been pretty good, if not very good so far. The execution hasn't always been great. Certainly wasn't great in the Texas game. But there's like ideas and execution and eventually the two have to marry to for you to have a really good run game. And I think that happened for Ohio State last year has not always happened in Ryan Day's tenure. Really good, I think really good running the ball last year, excellent running the ball in his first two years when he had Justin Fields a quarterback. J.K. dOD was in 2019 and Trey Sermon in 2020 and between 2020 and last year, not, not so good. Right. And I don't think I've never sort of subscribed to the idea that if you are a pass first offense, which Ohio State has been every year except for by percentage of plays, except for last year in 2019, that you can't be a good running team. So when Ohio State's not, I think I've kind of, I've tried to go to my way to like to point that out and it's far too early to say like is, is this team going to have that issue or not? I, I don't know. I think you come out of the Texas game and think like, well, I don't know. That doesn't look great. And then. But you also can't take the successes of the last two weeks and see like, see they're awesome now, right? Like the, the caliber of opponent does matter. And I have seen some questions of like, is this going to be like the 2018 offense that could throw it on anybody but couldn't run it when it needed to? My answer to that would probably be no because I think they are better trying to remember who's on a team better off at running back because in like 2018 you had guys sharing a workload and they were like kind of in their own heads and neither one of them were kind of putting their best foot forward. And also I don't think that offensive line was very good. I think this offensive line is better than that offensive line in these running backs because it's sort of like a core program principle now to share the workload in that way that they'll better navigate it than those guys did back then. So I don't, I don't think I Compare it to 2018, 2022. They actually like went like a God awful rushing team. Maybe that could be the best example. I think it'd be better than 2023 when they weren't a great rushing team either. And I don't know that'll be quite as good as last year. I don't know that any of the backs right now are as good as Travyon Henderson and Quinn shot Judkins were, especially by the end of last season. So I want to like get that out there because those are, those are big shoes to fill. But I think the pieces are there for the run game to be like a solid if not pretty good complement to what will be this offense's calling card which will be Julian saying throwing the ball to Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate. No one is under any disillusions that, that, that any something other than that would be the case. This is, this is very much going to be a pass first team this year and next year with Julian Saying as a starting quarterback and Jeremiah Smith around for the next two years and who knows, maybe Carnell Tate's around for the next two years. We'll see.
- [19:16]
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- [20:34]
B
It's more about can the run game complement the passing game? Can it be efficient? Can you find ways to be explosive running the ball and not merely threaten teams explosively by by throwing the ball. And I don't think Ohio State or I don't think anybody who's watched Ohio State, myself included, is in a place to say like definitively yes, that that it will be. But I think the last two weeks and especially this past week and maybe it's just mostly like the emergence of Bo Jackson are encouraging. It's like the combination of the emergence of Bo Jackson what I would consider some settling in from James Peoples and consistently like scheme wise. I think like some pretty good ideas on how to run the ball and not just on how to run the ball but how to pair play action pass with that. How to pair run pass options with that. Right? We've seen I think some more RPOs as part of the plan the last two weeks. Now Ohio State has a chance with an idle week this week and then two full weeks really to prepare for for Washington and Go on the road for a tough Big Ten test to kind of build all that out and see what it can look like. So am I sitting here telling you on Monday, September 15th at Ohio State, it's all gravy. They have a great rushing attack. No, but I kind of like the pieces, especially if, especially if Bo Jackson is part of this. I didn't like what Isaiah west did, but I'm not gonna bang the table for two freshmen. We're gonna get one at least and you know, we'll take that. I, I suppose before we wrap, I do want to tell you, just this stretch coming up, right? And again, like it's early season, these numbers will level out. Some of these teams will not be where they are right now. But these four games against Washington, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Washington actually does not have a great run defense. Well, it's like middle of the pack early in the season, but it hasn't been as stifling as the others that are that are coming up. Minnesota currently is third in the country in rushing defense, yards per carry 1.77. They have what played one game against a power team. It was Cal, they lost that game. But they have held every team they played under 100 yards. Wisconsin is number five in rushing defense, yards per carry at 1.93. They have played one power conference team. It was Alabama, they lost, but they have held every team they played under 100 rushing yards. And Illinois is number 17 in rushing defense, yards per carry 2.64. They have also one power conference opponent. It was Duke. They did held whole Duke under 100 yards. One of their games, one of their opponents, they get over 100 rushing yards. But their, their run defense has likewise been solid. So I guess I mentioned that only to say we've seen three games of this one against what might be the best defense in the country outside of Columbus and Texas was not great. It was week one. That's not surprising. The last two weeks have been good. We will have a ton more data and a much better idea of where Ohio State is running the ball after this four game stretch going into the second off week, preparing for that game against Penn State on the first Saturday in November, we'll have a pretty fully fledged idea of like I think of who Ohio State is sort of across the board once we get to that point, seven games into the season as they look at game number eight against Penn State, but from a run game perspective, because I just know it's been like a talking, it was a talking point this past week, like you ran it against Grambling. Great. This is a step up against Ohio. Can, can you run it a little bit there? And like, it wasn't perfect, it wasn't the most efficient thing, especially in the red zone, but it was at least explosive. And that to me almost feels like the most important thing is like an explosive compliment to what Ohio State is going to be able to do throwing the football. And again, I think it's in a decent spot. We'll see how it plays out here over the next couple weeks. So all right, that'll wrap it up here on the Monday sort of rewatch pod. Sort of like a 30,000foot view of how Ohio State's running the ball right now as it goes into this first week off. Hope you guys have enjoyed the first three games of the season. Thank you so much for for kind of riding with us here and at Substack. Whether you're doing both or one or the other, any anything you're doing to support what Doug and I are doing, we again be greatly appreciate one more time. Ryan Day Tuesday Brian Hartline Tuesday Matt Patricia Tuesday. More stuff coming this week here on the YouTube channel and at billanddugosu.substack.com that'll wrap up this episode. Thanks for watching. We'll catch you later.