Ohio State football: Three takeaways from win vs. Northwestern
By Ryan Stano
2. Ryan Day’s playcalling is a problem for the Ohio State football team.
The weather conditions were horrendous on Saturday. That made calling plays a challenge for Ryan Day throughout the game. I understand that conditions like that make it hard to stay balanced and run what you like to run during a normal game.
With all of that being said, Day has struggled with his playcalling in the first half in two straight games. He knew what the conditions were going to be in this game leading up to kickoff. There’s no reason why his team shouldn’t have been prepared for what they saw on Saturday.
After things weren’t working early in the game, why not switch things up in the running game? They continued to try to run the same old runs they always run. Inside zone from the pistol. Bland outside runs with Williams. They didn’t get creative until the second half.
Against a better team than Northwestern, that is the type of playcalling that gets you beat. You can’t wait until the end of the third quarter to start trying new things when the old things aren’t working. Day has to do a better job with his in-game adjustments.
Day has two more games to fix this issue before Michigan comes to town. Both teams he faces before then are more talented than this Northwestern team. I’m hoping the weather isn’t bad for either of those games because clearly, this team can’t handle the conditions.
My final takeaway has to deal with how good I think the Buckeyes are relative to the rest of the top teams in college football.