Scarlet and Game
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Ohio State Football: Three keys to victory vs. Oregon

By Ryan Stano

Ohio State Buckeyes Thayer Munford (75), Haskell Garrett (92), Miyan Williams (28) and defensive coordinator Kery Coombs sign Carmen Ohio after beating Minnesota Golden Gophers 45-31 in Huntington Bank Stadium at University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, MN on September 2, 2021.Ceb Osu21min Kwr 65
Ohio State Buckeyes Thayer Munford (75), Haskell Garrett (92), Miyan Williams (28) and defensive coordinator Kery Coombs sign Carmen Ohio after beating Minnesota Golden Gophers 45-31 in Huntington Bank Stadium at University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, MN on September 2, 2021.Ceb Osu21min Kwr 65 /
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The Ohio State Football team needs to stop the run better if they want to beat Oregon.Ceb Osu21min Kwr 32
The Ohio State Football team needs to stop the run better if they want to beat Oregon.Ceb Osu21min Kwr 32 /

Defend the run better

Ohio State faced one of the best running backs in the Big Ten in the opener. Mohamed Ibrahim was great and killed the Buckeyes’ defense, running for 163 yards and 2 touchdowns. He singlehandedly kept the Golden Gophers in that Week 1 contest.

While Oregon doesn’t have a running back as good as Ibrahim, they can still move it pretty well. They still ran for 186 yards against Fresno State. We thought that the best part of Ohio State’s defense was going to be stopping the run. That wasn’t true in the first game though.

I thought that the defensive line would be more stout and get more of a push at the line of scrimmage. That wasn’t the case on Thursday night. In fact, I thought they got manhandled at times. It was a surprisingly rough showing from them in the run game.

Stopping the run is crucial in this one because it keeps Oregon’s play-action game on ice. Anthony Brown isn’t a very good passer down the field. He can really only hit wide-open guys. Stopping the run makes it harder for guys to get open because then defensive backs can just sit back on third down.

I never thought I’d say this, but Ohio State should let Brown try to beat them through the air. The extremely young secondary actually played well on Thursday night, and they should be getting a few guys back from injury as well. They actually seem well-equipped back there.

The second thing the Buckeyes need to do has to deal with personnel decisions.

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