Ohio State Football: Three things C.J. Stroud must fix before Oregon

The Ohio State football team had a tough opener against Minnesota. They were breaking in a new quarterback that had never taken a collegiate pass, on the road, in the rain. Worse than that, they had to break in a new starting center when they weren’t expecting it to.

Despite all of this, C.J. Stroud emerged with a pretty good stat line. He finished the game 13/24 for 294 yards, 4 touchdowns, and 1 interception. He played much better in the second half than he did in the first half after Ryan Day was able to settle him down.

Even though the stat line was that pretty, it’s misleading. Most of those yards were from receivers who had a lot of yards after the catch. TreyVeon Henderson’s 70-yard touchdown catch was mostly from him just using his speed. That ball only traveled four or five yards down the field.

The same thing can be said about Chris Olave’s final touchdown catch. Most of those yards were from after the catch. Garrett Wilson’s touchdown came about because he was absolutely wide open. Stroud still had to hit these guys, but that’s why the stats were misleading.

Oregon comes to town a week from today. Before that game, there are three things that Stroud must fix before that game if the Buckeyes are going to come out with a victory. Oregon is much better than Minnesota is and won’t be as forgiving when it comes to their defense.

The first thing Stroud must fix comes with his footwork in the pocket.