Ohio State heads to Penn State on Saturday knowing it must run the football much better and convert more third-down opportunities if it wants a chance to win and keep its Big Ten title hopes alive.
Columbus, OH – One for 10 on third downs.
With disdain, head Buckeye Ryan Day repeated that statistic from the Nebraska game three times at Tuesday’s press conference. And the words “third down” were said many more times.
“When you go one for 10, you can’t keep drives alive, you can’t control the game.”
“To go one for 10, I mean, that’s just unacceptable.”
“When you go one for 10 on third down … it’s hard to get your rhythm going.”
Veteran columnist Jeff Gilbert writes Ohio State football and OHSAA sports for Press Pros Magazine.com.
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We’ve had Improvement Week, the two-week combo of Fix The Pass Rush and Win The Fourth Quarter. Now it’s Third Down Week.
During the two weeks of preparation for Nebraska, Day spent extra time in defensive meetings because of the Oregon outcome. Guess whose meetings Day is attending more this week?
It ain’t special teams.
This week Coach Fix-It can be found in offensive meetings, meting out instructions to solve the Buckeyes’ sudden third-down trouble among other inadequacies.
“We got to win the turnover battle, we got to win the rushing yards, got to win the explosive plays,” he said. “Got to go back to the drawing board and figure out what happened in the game, why it didn’t get done, and get it fixed.”
By Saturday.
The No. 4 Buckeyes can’t afford a repeat performance in the running game that resembles anything like the 64 yards on 31 attempts against Nebraska. Penn State is unbeaten, ranked No. 3 for a reason and is too good otherwise to lose if it controls Ohio State’s running game to that degree. A trip to Indianapolis and a potential rematch with Oregon for the Big Ten title is on the line.
The game plan, devised around what Penn State does well on defense and what it doesn’t, will determine the play calling, a point offensive coordinator Chip Kelly makes every time he’s asked about running more, throwing deep more, etc.
But most questions, concerns and raw emotions center on the offensive line’s performance. Maybe the Nebraska game was just a bad game. But there is much to figure out this week … but only so much can change logistically.
“We’re not going to all of a sudden radically change what we do,” Day said. “We just have to move some things around.”
Day said Wednesday senior Zen Michalski, who started against Nebraska at left tackle, will not be recovered from the injury that knocked him out in the fourth quarter. He was at the center of many of the breakdowns.
“It was a combination of things,” Day said. “Zen did get beat on a few of them there, but it wasn’t just him. There was some other things that were mixed in there.
“We know what we see in practice, and we got to continue to support him, to make sure that he knows that we have confidence in him when he goes in the game.”
If the offensive line fixes work – whether it’s Donovan Jackson at tackle and Luke Montgomery at guard or another combination – the Buckeyes will be able to establish the run, convert more third downs and have a chance to wear down Penn State’s defense.
“We’re looking to establish the run,” Day said. “But when you can’t convert on the third downs, the third and shorts, then you can’t get drives going, you can’t wear down the defense. So we’ve got to convert on third down.”
“Obviously you can have plans going into the week, but sometimes that plan changes as the game starts to express itself. So then you have to adjust within the game.” – Chip Kelly
If the Fox broadcast doesn’t list third-down conversions as a key for Ohio State, they aren’t paying attention. The key for the Buckeyes will be execution up front against a defense that offensive coordinator Chip Kelly says gives different looks than Nebraska.
“You’re always looking for a weakness in the defense that you face, and the defense that you face from every opponent is different,” Kelly said. “Obviously you can have plans going into the week, but sometimes that plan changes as the game starts to express itself. So then you have to adjust within the game.”
Will Howard showed at Kansas State that he is more than a capable runner and can break long runs. He made a couple key runs on the winning drive against Nebraska, but he hasn’t been a staple of the running game or broken a long one.
Big runs buy Howard figures to be difficult against Penn State unless the pass protection is good enough to force the defense into taking more risks.
“The luxury when you have a defense where you can generate pressure with just the front four, you can play a little bit more coverage, play a little bit closer to receivers,” Kelly said. “So their blitz percentages aren’t as high as some of the teams that we play because those four guys up front can generate that pressure.”
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Adjusting to the flow will matter a lot in this game. Sometimes adjustments work, sometimes they don’t.
Therefore, offensive questions about how to fix the problems will persist as they did Tuesday from the assembled media.
What should the run-pass balance be?
How much will the quarterback run?
What adjustments are to be made?
Who’s the left tackle? The left guard?
What about trick plays?
All good questions that might get answered in some fashion on game day. But we know what Day wants to solve this week.
“The bottom line is,” he said, “we got to convert on third down.”
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