The Ohio State Buckeyes are all-in, and thus, so are their beat reporters. Just because no team besides the Texas Longhorns in Week 1 looked like they belonged on the same field as OSU doesn't mean this team has a cakewalk to the College Football Playoff National Championship. Soon enough, the margins of error will shrink, and bad habits from the season could pop back up at the worst time.
Speaking of inopportunistic times and occurrences, Cleveland.com's Andrew Gillis hammered the Buckeyes' lack of execution in the red zone during a 34-10 road win over the Purdue Boilermakers, calling out quarterback Julian Sayin and guard Tegra Tshabola by name in a wider criticism of Brian Hartline's play-calling within 20 yards of the end zone.
Gillis gave the team no grace for missing Carnell Tate with an undisclosed injury that Ryan Day downplayed during the broadcast. As Gillis notes, TTUN is coming. Losing focus during that week could nearly derail an entire campaign, as last year's loss proved.
"Sure, the stats looked fine for the Buckeyes, who went 3 of 5 from the red zone. But their offense’s inability to turn trips inside the Purdue 20-yard line into easy seven points boggles the mind a bit," Gillis prefaced before saying, "Star receiver Carnell Tate wasn’t in the lineup, yes, but they turned what could’ve been easy solutions into more problems for the offense.
"Sayin had thrown three interceptions entering the day and threw a fourth with Ohio State knocking on the door against Purdue. It was his second red zone interception of the season.
"Another second-half drive failed as the Buckeyes were pushed out of field goal range when Sayin was sacked, after right guard Tegra Tshabola was beaten off the line of scrimmage.
"Kicker Jayden Fielding was true on the day, but while the Buckeyes dominated the game without much red zone success, it’s still an issue they’ll look to rectify before the Michigan game on Nov. 29."
The result was never in doubt. But Day's squad left enough doubt to wonder if there's a big-game loss on the horizon.
If it does, Tshabola, who's been called out before by Cleveland.com, could be a scapegoat.
Sayin will definitely be a scapegoat if Ohio State doesn't finish the job, just because of how high he's set expectations for himself with his play this year.