You’re Nuts: What is the biggest concern for Ohio State heading into Big Ten play?
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Ohio State closed out the non-conference portion of their regular season schedule with a 59-3 win over Kent State on Saturday. The Buckeyes now head into their first Big Ten game against Illinois with a 2-1 record, with their only loss coming to Texas in a game where they blew a 20-point fourth-quarter lead and fell to the Longhorns 24-23 in Austin.
Unlike last season when Ohio State was expected to cruise through their regular season Big Ten schedule and earn a playoff spot, there isn’t quite as much optimism this season. Not only do the Buckeyes have tough matchups on the horizon against Iowa, Indiana, USC, and Oregon, but there are also some cracks that have shown when it comes to their on-field performance through the first three games.
Today, what we want to know is, as the Buckeyes are heading into Big Ten play, what is most concerning about what Ohio State has shown so far through three games. There could be a player who hasn’t lived up to expectations, a position group who is playing below their potential, or maybe there are issues with the coaching staff.
Luckily, by identifying problems early in the season, it gives Ohio State time to try and fix them. It’s not like the Buckeyes haven’t rebounded from a loss early in the season, or even in their final regular-season game, and gone on to win a national championship. The first step is admitting there is a problem and being open to doing everything you can to fix it.
Today’s question: What is the biggest concern for Ohio State heading into Big Ten play?
We’d love to hear your choices. Either respond to us on Twitter at @Landgrant33 or leave your choice in the comments.
Brett’s answer: The lack of a quality second wide receiver emerging behind Jeremiah Smith
Perhaps we’ve become a little too spoiled when it comes to wide receivers we have seen come through Columbus over the last decade. Right now, Ohio State has the best wide receiver in college football in Jeremiah Smith, who has already broken the school’s career yardage record even though he has just completed the third game of his junior season. There is no doubt Smith will be the first receiver taken in April’s NFL Draft.
During his first two years as a Buckeye, Smith had a future first-round pick lining up with him at wide receiver. Emeka Egbuka was a senior when Smith arrived as a freshman in 2024, and last year Carnell Tate shared the load with Smith in quarterback Julian Sayin’s first season as starting quarterback. Not that Smith wasn’t a star in his first two seasons at Ohio State, but he truly has taken center stage this season.
So far through three games, Smith has 21 catches for 400 yards and three touchdowns. No other Buckeye wide receiver has at least 10 catches or more than 133 yards receiving. The only other Ohio State wide receiver with multiple touchdown receptions is Chris Henry Jr., who found the end zone in the second half of blowouts of Ball State and Kent State with the Buckeyes already comfortably ahead of their opponents.
UTSA Devin McCuin’s biggest moment as a Buckeye came when Sayin missed his wide-open wide receiver in the Texas game. Brandon Inniss obviously has his teammates’ respect after being voted a team captain, but he doesn’t make many big plays. After averaging 7.5 yards per catch last season, the only reason Inniss is averaging 16.6 yards per catch this season is because of the Hail Mary toss at the end of the first half of the win over Kent State on Saturday.
Why not give Henry some run with Smith and the rest of the starters? Even though the freshman is still pretty green when it comes to playing college football, he obviously has the size and athleticism that Inniss and McCuin don’t. Brock Boyd could be the next Anthony Gonzalez or Dane Sanzenbacher, but it’s hard to imagine him seeing the field very much the rest of the year after he has been relegated to second-half blowout duty so far this season.
Who knows, maybe by shaking things up behind Smith at wide receiver, Julian Sayin might break out of the funk he has been in at times at the beginning of his junior season.
Matt’s answer: The inability to run in short yardage
Coming out of the non-conference portion of the season, I think that all Buckeye fans can agree that there are a number of things that Ohio State needs to clean up if they want to avoid a repeat of what happened in Austin when they play the likes of USC, Indiana, Oregon, and — Woody forbid — Michigan. Julian Sayin needs to be more consistent, the defensive line needs to get home more often, and — as Brett said — someone not named Jeremiah Smith needs to become a reliable pass-catcher.
But if I had to pick the single thing that concerns me most about what we’ve seen from Ohio State thus far, I have to start in the trenches. When the Buckeyes absolutely have to run the football, I have almost no confidence that they can do it. Gone are the days of “Three yards in a cloud of dust”; when the OSU offense needs to pick up three yards or less, I am increasingly terrified that they are going to try to do it on the ground.
I could broaden this concern to the offensive line as a whole (which I feel like I have discussed ad nauseum for years), as I did following the win over Kent State, but I don’t think that would be entirely fair. Outside of the second half against Texas, the pass protection has generally been steady enough. Even some of the individual blocking numbers suggest that the line isn’t universally failing; Austin Siereveld, for example, has a 71.9 PFF run-blocking grade through three games, ranking 48th among 610 guards in college football.
The problem is that when the field gets condensed and the defense knows what is coming, Ohio State simply cannot consistently move people enough to pick up the yardage they need.
Nothing illustrated that better than Saturday’s 59-3 demolition of Kent State. On four third downs with three or fewer yards to gain, Ryan Day and Arthur Smith called four running plays; in any world where anything made sense, those should effectively be gimmes for Ohio State against almost any opponent, especially one from the MAC.
However, Bo Jackson gained two yards on third-and-3. Isaiah West lost a yard on third-and-1. Ja’Kobi Jackson gained one on third-and-2. West lost two on another third-and-3.
For those of you scoring at home, that’s four attempts, zero cumulative yards… against Kent State… at home. The Buckeyes didn’t convert on a single third-down attempt until their eighth and final attempt, and it was on the very last drive of the game.
Ohio State did convert two subsequent fourth-and-1 attempts, so this isn’t an entirely hopeless situation, but that is an awfully low bar for a program with national championship aspirations and a history of being dominant on the ground. The Buckeyes finished the Kent State game averaging just 3.8 yards per rush, and their running backs were stuffed on third-and-short repeatedly despite Ohio State possessing an obvious and overwhelming talent advantage at essentially every position.
And this isn’t just one weird afternoon. Through three games, Ohio State ranks only 79th nationally at 158.7 rushing yards per game and 64th at 4.58 yards per carry. Even those numbers are inflated by explosive runs against Ball State; the Buckeyes rushed for 237 yards in the opener, but that total was aided significantly by three long runs from Bo Jackson, Ja’Kobi Jackson, and Legend Bey. Against Texas, Ohio State managed only 94 yards on 31 carries, averaging just 3.0 yards per attempt. More importantly for this discussion, the Buckeyes faced fourth-and-2 at the Texas 13 and handed the ball to Ja’Kobi Jackson, who gained one yard, resulting in a turnover on downs. In what ended up as a one-point game against an elite opponent, that is exactly the outcome that this Buckeye team just can’t have.
That is where my concern goes from irritating to potentially season-defining. The Buckeyes can scheme around inconsistent rushing efficiency; they have Jeremiah Smith, they have an experienced quarterback, they have enough skill-position talent to create explosive plays even when the offensive line isn’t blowing defenders five yards off the ball. But there will be moments against Indiana, Oregon, Michigan, and potentially in the College Football Playoff when there will be no schematic Get Out of Jail Free Card. It will be third-and-2 or fourth-and-1 or first-and-goal, and they will absolutely have to pick up that yardage despite everybody on the other side of the ball knowing exactly how they have to do it.
Maybe the answer is the “Bison” package that Ohio State experimented with against Kent State. Maybe it is changing the run scheme, changing personnel, getting Sayin more involved as a threat, or simply demanding better execution from a veteran offensive line that Day said was “walking on water” coming out of preseason camp. I don’t know what the answer is, which is fine, because I’m just a know-nothing blogger, but after years of dealing with this same problem, I have almost completely lost faith in the coaching staff’s ability to figure it out, either.
Ohio State can survive plenty of imperfections and still achieve most of what it wants to achieve this season, but after what we saw in the postseason last year, I don’t think there is any reason to believe that they can win games of consequence if they remain unable to pick up two yards when they absolutely, positively have to have them.
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