Ohio State appeared to be pulling off another sweep of the state championship game on Saturday with a 49-14 win over Marshall at Ohio Stadium, but when you pull the rug away, there is still so much dust on the ground that OSU coach Ryan Day keeps talking about the pursuit of perfection.
The special teams were nothing special and the defensive line was pushed around too often.
On the positive side, the Buckeyes’ running game was in full swing and both Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson broke through the Herd defense like butter.
Ohio State: Kickoffs are a mess
Ohio State kicker Jayden Fielding is threatened with having his jersey number changed from 38 to Fore!
The kick in soccer is similar to the swing in golf, except that it is performed with the leg rather than the club. And just like in golf, a lot can go wrong. Very wrong.
On Saturday, Fielding’s “swing” went awry. Three of his kicks were duck hooks that flew left and out of bounds with his right foot, embarrassing him and earning him boos from the Ohio Stadium crowd. (As an aside, I’m not a big fan of booing college athletes, but the game is changing every day. Players getting paid to play are moving the college game more and more toward the NFL, for better or worse, and paying fans increasingly feel they have permission to boo “their” team.)
The three off-center kicks led Marshall to start his attacks at the 35-yard line instead of the 25, putting the spotlight on a special teams unit that has struggled for several seasons. Last year, it was particularly chaotic, so much so that Day showed special teams coach Parker Fleming the door.
Day became more involved in overseeing the special teams, which are now coached by a committee, and things were going pretty smoothly until Saturday, when in addition to Fielding’s botched kicks, Brandon Inniss fumbled a punt that Marshall recovered. Fortunately for Inniss, who replaced Jayden Ballard on the kickoff return, the fumble was nullified by an illegal lineup penalty against the Herd. Inniss also fumbled on a punt return that would have resulted in a big gain.
Coaches shouldn’t be blamed for individual mistakes, but Ohio State is a big company, and it’s bad form for a CEO to throw the corporation’s hardworking employees under the bus. That’s not to say Day was wrong to bench Fielding at halftime and replace him with Austin Snyder. When a kicker develops the equivalent of golf yips, you bench him until he proves he can overcome his nervous twitch.
The big question is whether Day will bench himself – har-har – for drawing a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after taking a timeout to avoid a delay of game penalty.
Ohio State’s running game picks up speed
Ohio State finished the first quarter with two rushing yards on a Henderson run. Then the floodgates opened. Judkins (173 yards) and Henderson (76) combined for 156 yards in the second quarter alone and OSU finished the quarter with 280 yards on 31 carries and a 9.0 average. Judkins averaged 12.4 yards per attempt and Henderson 12.7
It’s important to remember that Marshall isn’t Georgia, but the two tailbacks have shown enough to appease Buckeyes fans. Judkins, in particular, shows excellent game reading, which will come in handy when the offensive line, while improved, is still developing.
Lou Holtz may have something to say
Ohio State’s strength is its defense, right?
RIGHT?
That assumption was put to the test against Marshall, as the Herd offensive line dominated the Buckeyes defensive line in the first quarter. Before it was all said and done, Marshall’s quick passing offense helped them score 14 points.
Yes, OSU’s starting defensive tackle Tyleik Williams was out due to an unspecified injury, but it was surprising how well Marshall’s quarterback found space for the keepers, at least initially.
In the end, the Buckeyes gave up and held the Herd to 264 yards, but their eventual opponents learned something about OSU’s defense: it’s not impenetrable.
Is it soft? Let’s see what happens next week at Michigan State.
The depth of talent takes its toll
Two of OSU’s first three games have shown why teams like Akron (Week 1) and Marshall can hang with Power Four teams for a quarter or two, but eventually the wagon turns back into a pumpkin.
It’s not that the Zips and Herd lack talent, but rather that with temperatures reaching 32 degrees and reaching 38 degrees on the field, the lower-tier programs simply don’t have enough horses to compete with the Ohio States of the world.
One might wonder how the Mid-American and Sun Belt (Marshall) schools would fare later in the season when temperatures are cooler. The answer is, “Not well.” Due to injuries, depth becomes even more important as the fall progresses.
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