It is time to pump the brakes on all the Ohio State doubt that’s flowing from all corners of the country.
While the Buckeyes have not shown the precision many people expected from their offense, it must be noted that Ohio State is in a better spot through six games than it was last year. In addition, there are a lot of similarities to be found in a comparison with the 2014 team.
The main thing to date is that the Buckeyes have not lost, which is a key to defending their national championship.
During the journey to the title last year, Ohio State was trailing Indiana in the third quarter and played three contested games with one blowout, before smashing Maryland. Sound familiar?
This year’s squad saw a scare from Northern Illinois, but firmly defeated Virginia Tech, Hawaii, and Western Michigan.
Last year’s squad was breaking in a new quarterback in the early stages of the season, after Braxton Miller went down in late August. While Cardale Jones did see action in three games down the stretch, and three vitally important games at that, he still attempted only 92 passes, 17 of which came in garbage time. While Jones looked strong in the title run, he is still extremely green and needs some work to get comfortable.
Things are also starting to trend up for Jones in the past two games. After struggling to complete over 58 percent of his passes (he did so just once in the first four games), Jones has connected on 71 percent of his passes in the last two. He has thrown three touchdowns to one interception in these two games. He’s cutting down on turnovers: he threw four picks in the earlier portion of the season.
It seems that Jones is running less, and much of that is due to the emergence of Ezekiel Elliott. While the yards are not drastically different, the per-carry average has been there over the last three games: 7.8, 11.9, and 5 in the past three weeks. While Jones got a lot of national attention for the title run last season, Elliott was the one who brought the offense together… and he is doing that again this season.
Where this year’s squad differs from the 2014 group is on the defensive side of the ball. Right now, the Buckeyes have allowed just a smidge over 300 yards per game and 13 touchdowns. For the entire campaign, the unit averaged allowing 342.4 yards per game and an increased yards per play number. Yes, Joey Bosa and the pass rush have not been what they were last season, but this is a work in progress. Bosa has only 1.5 sacks, but he is also seeing more double-teams.
The remaining Big Ten schedule, before the rough back-to-back games against Michigan State and at Michigan, is awfully vanilla as well. The combined record of Penn State, Rutgers, Minnesota, and Illinois is 15-8, much of which is padded by non-conference and easier schedules. While the schedule is nothing to completely overlook, it will give the Buckeyes time to get both sides of the ball firing on all cylinders before the conference schedule really heats up.
With all of this said, Ohio State is in the exact same position if not a better one than last season.
In baseball, when a good starting pitcher is going, you have to get to him early. Ohio State may have wobbled, but its competitors did not score runs in the first three innings. Now that the Buckeyes are in the middle third of their schedule and continue to face manageable opponents before the back end of November, they have every chance of being able to find the same groove they acquired against Wisconsin in last season’s Big Ten Championship Game.
If they find that groove, look out.
