Ohio State football vs. Iowa: Offensive grades

The Ohio State football team is now 7-0 after taking down Iowa 54-10. While the Buckeyes may have beaten the Hawkeyes by a lot, that score is actually misleading. Ohio State’s offense was not what it normally is, especially in the first half. Here are the grades for each offensive unit.

C.J. Stroud was not good early in this game. He was forcing passes into areas with defenders all over receivers and couldn’t move the ball. The Buckeyes had just 133 yards of offense in the first half. The worst decision Stroud made all game though happened early in the second half.

Stroud threw an interception into triple coverage right after the second half started. He’s now thrown a pick in four straight games. Yet, once it was all said and done, he still finished 20/30 for 286 yards and 4 touchdowns to go along with that pick.

Those are good numbers, but make no mistake; if Stroud plays like this against Michigan, the Buckeyes might get beat. That’s how concerning the play was from the quarterback on Saturday despite the blowout.

I was really hoping that this would be the start of Ohio State showing what they can do in the run game. Instead, it was a poor showing from the backs. Ohio State’s running backs had just 71 yards on 24 carries. That’s only good enough for 2.9 yards per carry.

Miyan Williams had just 19 yards on 10 carries but did have a touchdown. TreVeyon Henderson had 11 carries for 38 yards and may have gotten hurt again. It was a bad showing for the running backs, but poor play calling and offensive line play didn’t help them.

This may have been the worst game that the offensive line has played so far this year. Iowa has a good defense, so you have to give them credit as well. But the offensive line couldn’t open up any holes in the run game and allowed Stroud to get pummeled on a sack that resulted in a scoop and score early in this game.

Cade Stover only had two catches for 25 yards, but he did have a cool hurdle over a defender late in the game on one of those receptions. No tight end was super effective in terms of run blocking, so that didn’t help the cause much either. Gee Scott Jr. did have a catch for three yards as well.

The wide receivers were once again pretty good when they did get the ball thrown to them in good spots. Marvin Harrison Jr. had another ridiculous catch, which is becoming the regular day for him. He finished the game with 7 catches for 62 yards and a touchdown.

Julian Fleming was on the receiving end of the Ohio State football team’s best offensive play. He had a nice catch on a beautiful 79-yard touchdown pass that was Stroud’s best throw of the game. He had two catches for 105 yards and that touchdown in this one.

Emeka Egbuka had 6 catches for 80 yards and a touchdown. This game was the return of Jaxon Smith-Njigba, but he was a non-factor, only catching one pass for 7 yards. He also re-aggravated that hamstring. I’m beginning to think he may have played his last play for the Buckeyes.

While the offensive effort wasn’t the best in this game, the Buckeyes still scored 54 points. They still are a great offense that just went up against a great defense.