Ohio State Football: Slobs proved they are one of the best O-lines in CFB

One of the most pleasant surprises on the Ohio State football team has been the performance of the offensive line. The Slobs took things up a notch Saturday.

One of the question marks for the Ohio State football team entering the season was how well would the offensive line perform. After all, there was only one full-time returning starter, left tackle Thayer Munford.

Urban Meyer recruited plenty of talented offensive linemen before handing the baton to Ryan Day but most of the players hadn’t seen much playing time with the game on the line. Wyatt Davis was inserted at guard at the end of last season and Brandon Bowen was a starter in 2017 before an injury in the middle of the season set him back.

Coach Greg Studrawa had to rebuild the offensive line and form it into a cohesive unit so you would expect that to take some time. That certainly hasn’t been the case.

The first game against Florida Atlantic the Buckeyes racked up 469 yards of total offense and 237 yards on the ground, which can only happen if the line is opening holes. Then things really took off from there.

For the season Ohio State is ranked 7th in total yards averaging 514.8 yards per game. The Buckeyes are averaging 284.3 yards on the ground, 4th in the country.

Last Saturday the Buckeye offense started out slow but ended up scoring 38 points with 264 yards of rushing yards and 431 yards of total offense. Obviously the offensive line performed well against the No. 1 ranked Badger defense.

What was even more impressive than the total stats were the in-game adjustments. As usual, Wisconsin defensive coordinator Jim Leonard dialed up blitzes, and he has the linebackers to make them work.

At the beginning of the game the running game couldn’t get rolling and quarterback Justin Fields spent too much time on his back. Coach Studrawa designed a plan to counteract the blitz scheme and his players executed it well.

Midway through the second quarter the Ohio State offense began to roll and never looked back. It’s great when the game plan works right off the bat but against good defensive coordinators sometimes a team has to make adjustments on the fly. Coach Stud and his guys proved they can do so against the best.

If the offensive line continues to play at this high level, expect running backs J.K. Dobbins and Master Teague to continue to put up big yards on the ground, and Justin Fields to excel both running and throwing. And you can expect to see the Buckeyes in the College Football Playoff.