Even as the hopefully optimistic person I am, it was hard to come up with any real good takeaways from this game, but I was able to at the very least come up with two.
The good (or the not so bad)
For starters, this is one of those games that should make it abundantly clear that Jeremiah Smith is the best wide receiver in the country by an extremely wide margin. Now I know that many people have been giving that title to Malachi Toney.
It makes sense since Toney has been playing out of his mind to start the year, but that has been against Stanford and an FCS school, Florida A&M. Meanwhile, Smith just put up 8 catches for 164 against a top-5 team in the country, on the road, and dominated this game in ways that I don't think any other receiver in the nation could replicate if put in this same scenario. I know OSU did lose, but when you fire up Jeremiah Smith's tape from this game, you should see that there are levels to playing receiver.
Secondly, this run game actually performed better than I anticipated. Coming into this game, my main concern for Ohio State offensively was whether they could run the ball effectively against this Texas front seven, and they did. When you take away sack yardage, the Buckeyes' running backs ran for over 100 yards, which I didn't think they could do.
Bo Jackson led the way with 19 carries for 74 yards, which might not look that impressive in the box score, but it had a big effect on the game and looked good as he showed the vision and some of the physicality we have yearned to see from him. Yes, this run game doesn't look like the dominant, back-breaking ones of the past, but it looks much better than I anticipated, and that should count for something.
The Bad
One of the more jarring things I noticed watching this Texas game, and whenever I go back to look at this box score, is that outside of Jeremiah Smith, no other receiver was able to leave a mark on this game. Against Texas, OSU receivers other than Jeremiah Smith had a total of 2 catches for 24 yards, which is downright unacceptable, with the Buckeyes’ second-leading receiver being Bo Jackson.
While Jeremiah Smith is quite possibly the best receiver ever to play College football, the entire receiving game cannot be placed solely on his shoulders; that is not a sustainable model for success. Ohio State will need Devin McCuin to be a factor, Brandon Inniss to play like he has the block O on his chest, and if they can’t, they will need some of these young guys to make an impact if they want this passing game to be less Jeremiah Smith-dependent.
Now, the blame for this isn’t just on the other receivers; it is also on Julian Sayin for seeming unwilling to spread the ball around, which hurt OSU in the second half as Texas finally focused on not giving Jeremiah Smith one-on-one matchups. While this receiving room is not stacked like some of the ones we have had in the past, a game like this should not and cannot happen again, or 24 points might be all the points this offense will be able to muster.
The Ugly
As I said before in the opening, Ohio State should have lost this game by much more, and that was because of how badly this defense played on every single level, but especially their secondary, which was the most disappointing unit.
For pretty much the entire game, Ohio State appeared to be dropping 7 into coverage, but somehow, someway, Texas receivers were wide open. Two key first-half plays should have been Texas touchdowns because of this issue, but the first was the fluky Manning interception that somehow turned into one, even though Cam Coleman was wide open and the ball hit him directly in the hands.
The second was halfway through the second quarter, when Ryan Wingo dropped a wide-open pass up the seam in the end zone, resulting in only three points for Texas when it should have been 6. If these plays had gone as they should have due to critical OSU errors, Ohio State would have lost this game by double digits instead of just one point.
This shows that the only reason Texas didn't score upwards of 30 points was a combination of bad luck and Arch Manning playing a bad game. If Texas had Trinidad Chambliss at quarterback, a quarterback who lets the ball rip over the middle of the field with 0 hesitation, or any other quarterback who trusts their eyes, then we would be having a completely different and much worse conversation today about this game. Ohio State's secondary was bad in this game in ways the box score will lie to you about.
Now, this doesn't take the heat off the other defensive position groups because, like I said before, no unit on this defense played. The Buckeyes' defensive line got significantly worse as the game continued and couldn't generate any pressure with four, which would have helped this struggling secondary.
The linebackers were getting either run through or run around at times, especially Payton Pierce, which was incredibly disappointing, as he is supposed to be our best backer. This is all why the Ohio State defense was easily the ugliest part of their collapse to Texas down in Austin.
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