If Bo Jackson gains 1,500 yards, Ohio State will have a top-five offense

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From now until preseason camp starts in August, Land-Grant Holy Land will be writing articles around a different theme every week. This week is all about cause and effect. We will explore domino-effect scenarios that could impact OSU’s season.

You can catch up on all of the Theme Week content here and all of our ”If This, Then That” articles here.

Ohio State had a good offense in 2025, and the Buckeyes were even great in a few areas. However, the 2025 OSU offense wasn’t elite in the same way the Buckeye defense was a year ago. Had it been just a little better, the Buckeyes might well still be defending national champions.

Where were the Buckeyes short offensively in 2025? They finished 21st nationally in scoring offense (33.4 points per game), 26th in total offfense (422.6 yards per game), and 23rd nationally in pass offense (268.2 yards per game) a year ago.

While those are solid numbers — and could have been even better had Ryan Day not frequently taken the approach of milking the play clock down, which took away possession over the course of the year — the weak spot was in the run game.

Ohio State finished 72nd nationally in rush offense last season, averaging 154.4 yards per game. Freshman Bo Jackson emerged as the go-to back, fighting through injuries all season and posting 1,090 yards on 179 attempts for an average of 6.09 yards per attempt. He wasn’t the short-yardage option for the offense, however, and he only scored six touchdowns.

Being limited by injury, Jackson averaged 13.8 attempts and 83.9 yards per game. Keeping in mind that he didn’t emerge as RB1 until a few games had passed and the knocks he picked up in the middle and latter parts of the season, that’s a solid first year of college football.

Jackson had shoulder surgery and sat out spring practice, but he’ll enter preseason camp as the projected starter in the backfield behind quarterback Julian Sayin. He’ll have a new offensive coordinator — Arthur Smith — calling the game, and Smith likes to lean on the running game to set up the pass.

Even quarterback guru Day seems eager to find more success in the run game in 2026, telling reporters he wants more balance, and he even wants Sayin to make more plays with his legs.

While Ohio State’s offensive issues were exposed in the postseason, the Buckeyes still had a potent attack in 2025. If Smith can make improvements to the OSU run game to the point where Jackson can eclipse 1,500 yards as the featured back, the OSU offense will be elite — Top 5 nationally elite.

It will also mean more explosive running plays, and once Jackson gets into the open field of an opponent’s secondary, he’s always a threat to finish the play in the end zone.

Jackson should enter camp healthy, and now has a year’s worth of college football experience under his belt. He’ll also have worked on his lower body strength and balance in the off-season. If Smith’s system unlocks the run game even just a little more, there’s no reason Jackson can’t turn nearly 1,100 yards from 2025 into 1,500 in 2026 as long as he can avoid the injury bug.

There’s a lot of talent behind Jackson, but he’s shown himself to be the most explosive option. Starting from opening day through the end of the year, getting a few more carries per game, and hitting more big plays in the run game could see Jackson reach that 1,500-yard mark.

Meanwhile, Sayin has a year’s worth of starts and two postseason games under his belt. He also has Jeremiah Smith and a freakish freshman named Chris Henry Jr. along with a stable of tight ends and returning starter Brandon Inniss available to him.

There are a lot of ifs to this if-then statement, but…if the Ohio State’s passing game can stay on par while the running game makes leaps under Arthur Smith, it should push the Buckeyes up into the top five offenses in the country.

Here’s another if: If Matt Patricia reloads the defense in a way that has it performing at least close to the level of the 2025 unit on top of all of the offensive ifs above, it would likely make the Buckeyes the favorite in the College Football Playoff.

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