Ohio State Football: The one thing holding the offense back

The Ohio State football team was excellent on offense last year. They led the nation in scoring and in total offense. It’s hard to think that the offense was the reason why the Buckeyes lost two games last season, but a case can be made that they should share some blame.

Even though the Buckeyes put up a bunch of yards against Oregon, they went 1/4 on fourth down in that game. C.J. Stroud only threw for one touchdown and the Buckeyes couldn’t run the ball when they needed to. Those same running issues cropped up against TTUN.

We saw that the Oregon game was a growing pain for Stroud. He was excellent in every other game after that. The issue for Ohio State, and the one thing holding them back heading into this season, was the offensive line, specifically run blocking.

The run blocking was putrid for most of the season. The offensive line didn’t get any push at the line of scrimmage. Even in games where the Buckeyes ran for a lot of yards, it wasn’t due to the offensive line. It was due to TreVeyon Henderson and Miyan Williams being really good.

Justin Frye was brought in to fix that issue. He has some talented guys up front. These are guys that were highly recruited and highly touted coming out of high school. I don’t think a lack of talent is the issue. Frye needs to institute a different mentality and technique with these guys.

On a lot of run plays, offensive linemen were getting pushed back because they were too upright. They had no leverage. Frye needs to get his unit to block with more power using their legs. That will help drive back defensive linemen and open up more holes.

We’ll see how the offensive line looks in the Spring Game. This is the one unit that could hold the Buckeye offense back against great teams. It’s an issue that needs to be fixed if they are going to contend for a national title.