Ohio State football: Facing a few realities

After a loss like Saturday’s, I think it is a good idea to take a step back, catch your breath, and gather your thoughts. After doing so, it’s time to face a couple of realities.

The reality is the Ohio State football team’s run defense failed completely in both losses this season. Oregon and Michigan ran for a combined 566 yards and averaged over seven yards per carry. The defensive line could not hold the line of scrimmage, much less get penetration, and too often the linebackers were nowhere to be found.

The reality becomes even more ugly when you take a closer look at the Michigan game. If you throw out their possessions that totaled just three plays to end the first half and the game, the Wolverines had the ball nine times.

They scored touchdowns on six of those possessions, including all four in the second half when they ran just 22 plays. Let me say that again: four touchdown drives totaling 22 plays. These weren’t short drives where they had good field position.

Oh no, not at all. These were drives of 75, 82, 81, 78, 66, and 63 yards. The Buckeyes gave up 169 yards to a very limited running back, allowed a 55-yard run to another with a gimpy leg, and did not record a solitary tackle-for-loss.

Atrocious hardly begins to describe how bad it was. As they moved through the season, the Ohio State football team looked like these issues had been fixed. How wrong we were and Michigan took full advantage.

Another reality is this is a good, but nowhere near great offensive line. Too often, especially in short-yardage, they struggled to get appreciable movement, if any at all. Ryan Day wants his five best linemen on the field. That’s all fine and dandy, but simply because a tackle is one of your five best, and is capable of moving to guard and learning the position, it doesn’t mean he’s going to be effective.

They need to go back to using true guards in the 6’3” to 6’4” range and get away from moving 6’6” tackles inside. Remember Billy Price? 6’4”. Pat Elflein? 6’3”. One thing that has never changed in football is low man wins.

Natural guards are much more adept at getting underneath a defender and moving them. With TreVeyon Henderson being a part of the offense for the next two seasons, you want a special offensive line that can move people to open holes for your special running back.

Even with the struggles of the offensive line here and there, the Buckeyes still possessed an elite offense capable of scoring points. The reality is the failures of the defense cost this team a spot in the playoff. Ryan Day is facing the reality of major changes needing to be made on that side of the ball.

Changes to the coaching staff and players. You might see some of those changes here and there leading up to the bowl game, but I don’t think the way bowl practices are handled give enough time for anything major.

Regardless of which bowl game the Ohio State football team is invited to play in, the reality is I’ll look back on the 2021 regular season and think, “What if…” I have a feeling I won’t be the only one doing that.