Brian Hartline’s first game as offensive coordinator turned out a win…a big win for the Buckeyes. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Ryan Day and Brian Hartline made some aggressive play calls early Saturday against Texas. But as the game progressed and the score remained close, they sensed the personality of the game and made sure of the No. 1 goal – win.
Columbus, OH – Ryan Day understands the necessity and power of an offense’s ability to adapt. Game plans will be challenged. Coaches must adjust.
That’s why Day is not a throw-it-first coach. He’s not a run-it-first coach. He’s not a script-the-first-10-plays coach. He’s not a be-aggressive-at-all-times coach. He’s not a conservative-for-the-sake-of-being conservative coach.
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Running parallel to this understanding of Day’s game-day approach is the realization that he says more and more what he means. No coach ever completely erases coach-speak from their vocabulary, but Day’s credibility of he-says-what-he-means is rising. The pressure lifted by winning a national championship surely helps a coach speak more freely.
Veteran columnist Jeff Gilbert writes Ohio State football and basketball and OHSAA sports for Press Pros Magazine.com.
Saturday’s 14-7 victory over then-No. 1 Texas proved both to be true.
In many ways – and maybe more substantially in any game Day has coached – the labels many try to slap on coaches don’t apply to him. We know because he said many times last week that the only expectation on Saturday was to win any way possible. Then he coached like it.
Expectations of final statistics, explosive plays, how pretty it looks mattered little in comparison to the final score. Day and new offensive coordinator Brian Hartline want to be aggressive for four quarters because it’s more fun and more explosive. But that wasn’t the personality of this game.
They adapted. They managed and called the game from an aggressive start to a conservative finish, proving that finding a way to win was clearly the No. 1 goal by a lot over anything else. Day praised Hartline on Saturday for calling an unselfish game, for not forcing expectations to prove he knew what he was doing or to impress poll voters.
“The look test and style points is a pretty dangerous place to go sometimes,” Day said. “The No. 1 goal is to win, and if you get too worried about [other things], that can cost you a game.”
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Day and Hartline showed aggressiveness early, a clear trait in Day’s tenure. On the first series, Day chose to go for a first down on fourth-and-one at the Texas 49. The call was an aggressive one to ask a redshirt freshman quarterback to make. Julian Sayin threw accurately to tight end Max Klare on the sideline. But Klare dropped the pass as he tried to keep a foot inbounds, turning the ball over to Texas.
Jeremiah Smith, the wide receiver expected to be thrown to every time he is even with a defender or has him beat, was open farther downfield. Sayin came to the sideline and was seen discussing the play with Day.
The assumption: Day told Sayin he made a mistake by not throwing to Smith. But, like a good leader should, Day asked Sayin what he saw. He wanted an unfiltered response from his quarterback after the first big situation of his first start.
Julian Sayin made good decisions in his first start…and with the biggest national audience of the weekend.
Day said Sayin told him he felt the safety from the other side could be a problem if he threw deep.
“Made a ton of sense to me,” Day said. “I do think for a young quarterback having that iPad [on the bench] and actually watching what you saw and then comparing it, does confirm some things in your mind. In the past you wouldn’t actually know what that looked like until the next day.”
The best part for Sayin was that he adjusted and threw a strike to Klare.
“It was a good route by Max, Jeremiah was flying, I thought the design was right,” Day said. “We’re trying to be aggressive early in the game. You hit that, who knows what happens. That’s the game of football. You gotta move on, which I thought he did and we did.”
The next time Ohio State got the ball Smith dropped two passes, which should be the anomaly moments of the season. On the first one, he had room to take a short pass and turn it into a long gain. The Buckeyes eventually punted on a drive that could have been.
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Those two early drives being shut down by drops and preventing what might have been the start of scoring drives, changed the way the Buckeyes called offense. The score remained no more than a touchdown lead until the Buckeyes led 14-0 early in the fourth quarter. Then it was time to kill as much clock as possible and ensure the original and only important goal of winning.
Day admitted Saturday that the close score created a more conservative approach to offense. They still threw the ball some and scored on a 40-yard touchdown pass from Sayin to Carnell Tate. But this wasn’t the day – not a against a fast and physical defense – to be wide open.
Day’s references to how the game might have changed in personality had it not been for the dropped passes, shows another early score or two would have meant for a more aggressive attack.
“I’d like to think if we had made a few plays for [Julian] earlier on in the game maybe it would have gone in a different direction,” Day said. “But I don’t think he ever flinched.”
Neither did Day or Hartline. They showed they don’t mind living in a hybrid world of attacking based on what the defense gives you and the personality of the game.
In the second half, it’s unlikely Day would have gone for a first down on fourth-and-short like he did in the first quarter. The defense was playing well. So by then he wanted to limit Texas’ possessions and speed up the clock. The Longhorns had the ball twice in the third quarter and three times in the fourth, turning the ball over on downs three times, throwing an interception once and scoring once. Ohio State’s touchdown drives of eight minutes and almost five minutes in addition to a nearly four-minute possession in the fourth quarter limited Texas’ opportunities and created a four-minute advantage in time of possession.
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“They used to say time of possession is one of the more overrated statistics,” Day said. “Not really. Not when you’re in a game like that and you’re trying to keep a really good offense off the field.”
The next thing Day must adapt to is his team being ranked No. 1 by the Associated Press with 55 of the 66 first-place votes. He preaches to his team to ignore distractions like rankings and expectations beyond winning.
The next two weeks pale in comparison to Texas. The Buckeyes welcome Grambling and Ohio to the Horseshoe and must avoid complacency. They will win those games by a lot, and it will be difficult to discern improvement or lack of it watching from the stands or on TV. These will be important weeks of improvement no matter how easy the wins will come.
Pay attention to how the offense is called, how hard they play on both sides of the ball and on special teams, and to what Day says afterward. He wants to be able to say similar things after each of those games that he said about the Texas game Tuesday.
“We wanted to establish an identity in terms of playing physical – I think you saw that,” Day said. “The execution’s got to improve. We need to be more explosive on offense for sure. We know where we need to go, what we need to do.”
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