Play-calling once again an issue for Ohio State Football

We spent a large chunk of time lamenting the play-calling of Ryan Day for last year’s Ohio State football team. He called way too many bubble screens and didn’t get creative enough in the run game to get the running backs into open space.

To Day’s credit, he called the best game of his career against Georgia. It wasn’t the offense’s fault that they lost in the Peach Bowl. In the offseason, Day promoted Brian Hartline to offensive coordinator and mentioned that Hartline could be the one to call plays this year.

That wasn’t the case in the opener against Indiana. Day called the plays and the offense scored just 23 points on Saturday against an IU defense that was near the bottom of the Big Ten in every major statistical category a year ago. It was a pathetic performance.

Kyle McCord looked lost for most of the game. Most of his passes were short dump-offs over the middle. Marvin Harrison Jr., the best receiver in the country, had just two catches in the entire game. The other first-round receiver the Buckeyes have, Emeka Egbuka, had just three.

That’s completely unacceptable for a team that has the best receiving corps in the country. There is no reason that Ohio State shouldn’t be getting the ball to those guys at least 12 times a game combined. Instead, Day refused to call plays to get the ball to his best players.

One fourth-down call was particularly egregious from Day. On a fourth and two, he called a rollout pass play without either Harrison Jr. or Egbuka on the field. That is malpractice. Of course, the Buckeyes failed to convert and turned the ball over on downs.

If Ohio State would have played Penn State or Michigan on Saturday, they would have lost. The offense was a complete mess. They have two more games to fix it before they head to South Bend. Day needs to give up his duties to Hartline and let him try calling plays because the evidence says he isn’t very good at it.