Ohio State football: Winners, losers from OSU vs. Oregon

On the biggest plays, Ohio State was unable to produce and come through which ended up dooming this team.

If you want to find the key culprit for why Ohio State lost, look at conversions. Yes, the Buckeyes looked bad on defense and gave up a huge amount of yards to the Ducks, but they actually outgained Oregon by over 100 yards. The real difference was Ohio State having three drives that stalled out and ended up being turnover on downs.

This was killer for the Buckeyes, as a first down conversion on either drive has a high percentage chance of ending in a touchdown. None of the plays had much of a chance or came close to converting.

This was an issue for Ryan Day and his team since all three drives looked promising until self-inflicted mistakes took hold. Ohio State converted on a few key fourth downs, with the biggest ending up in the endzone, but could not do it on a regular basis.

The Buckeyes also converted third down on just a 40% clip which did not set them up for many long drives. struggling to convert third downs and then three huge misses on fourth down were the real difference makers in this game. When the game was at its biggest, and the Buckeyes needed someone to step up, nobody was there to answer the call.

I understand going for it on fourth down too, but they have to have more trust in the running game if they are going to continue to go for it near the end zone. Stroud can’t be trusted to convert in those scenarios.