The Good- John Hohl and the Defense. Let's start with Hohl, who broke out of a 1 for 5 start to his kicking career with a great game on the road, which ultimately put us in position to have a chance to win. Hohl hit kicks from 39 (same distance he missed against Illinois), 54 (3 yards shy of school record and had plenty of leg), and 47 yards. I'm not telling you he is the next Alex Henery, but he isn't a high school JV kicker, like many were describing him the past few weeks.
Whatever adjustments our defense made between last week and this week were fantastic! It looked like a completely different unit from the Indiana game. One of the biggest keys was our defense's ability to get off the field, which has been really the driving factor between this being a great unit some weeks and so-so in other weeks. The Blackshirts held OSU to 2 of 12 of late down conversions (3rd/4th combined). In pass coverage, things weren't quite as tight. We gave up a couple of long TD passes. Granted, these are to some of the top receivers in the country. Regardless, the defense played well enough against one of the countries best teams to give us a chance to win the game. If our defense continues to play at this level our prospects down the stretch are much better. However, consistency is the key!
The Bad- Red Zone Offense. As frustrating as things are with our offense, one of the most frustrating is our red zone offense. Despite not doing all that well as a unit, our offense still managed to pretty much match Ohio State in yardage. The biggest killer for us in this game and in others this season is our red zone offense. On the year, we are 67.86% in red zone efficiency, which ranks 130th of 134 teams in FBS. We rank 32nd in red zone scoring attempts per game, so it isn't an inability to get the ball down the field, but a failure to convert on those opportunities.
In this game, we had four such opportunities. The first came early in the 2nd quarter after Raiola ran the ball 38 yards downfield on a third and long. We had the ball set at the 15 yard line. The next three plays were all losses, including two passes that were completed for a loss (more on these type of plays to come). Fortunately, we still capitalized on the field goal, to manage not being held scoreless on the drive. The second opportunity came on our opening drive of the 2nd half. The offense finally built some momentum with a blend of good passing and strong runs by Dowdell. We worked our way down into the red zone and faced a 3rd and 4 where Emmett picked up 3 yards, which would have put us in position to consider going for it, but instead we got called for an illegal shift which turned it into 3rd and 9. Raiola gets sacked on the next play and we suddenly have a tough 47 yard FG that we managed to still make.
The next, and most damning failure in the red zone occurred after we forced an interception and returned the ball all the way to the OSU 7. Trailing by 5, it gave us an opportunity to steal momentum and the lead. Needing 7 yards, we had 4 runs that totaled 6 yards. Going for it on 4th was the right decision (although you can still question the play calls on that entire drive), but we squandered probably the biggest opportunity of the game.
Our one red zone success came at the start of the 4th quarter where we hit a couple of short/medium range passes to set up an easy one-yard score.
Scoring TD in the red zone isn't easy, since the defense has less space they have to cover. That said, we can't continue to be this bad when we work hard to get in positions to score.
The Ugly- Short passes. I contemplated labeling this simply "offensive playcalling"; but while there are still issues in that respect, I'd like to focus on where we are throwing the ball. Way too often, we are calling for screen passes or are running routes near or behind the line of scrimmage. Take for instance our first red zone trip, on 3rd and 14, we set up a wide receiver screen. The play before that was a completion to Barney behind the line of scrimmage for a one yard loss. There were a number of other times that we decided to throw the ball to someone at or behind the line (whether by choice or design) and it resulted in minimal yards, if not a loss.
I plan on breaking down this specific problem more in-depth later, but you can tell simply in the statistics that we aren't doing much in the long to intermediate passing game. We averaged 4.6 yards per pass attempt on Saturday (compared to 13.8 for OSU), and 7.2 yards per pass completion (compared to 17 for OSU). We simply aren't stretching the field and you can tell that defenses are burning us on that. We want to throw short because we either can't or won't go long, which makes it way harder to throw the ball short. It isn't to say that we can't capitalize on these types of plays, but you certainly can't when the defense is all within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage. For short passing concepts to be successful, you need guys to be able to make plays after the catch in space. But, they can't do that unless there is space to try and make that play.
Overall, the game went way better than I expected. Still a bummer to lose a close game, especially when a win would have been a major upset and secured us a bowl game. This game makes you feel a little better about what the rest of the season might look like, especially after the IU game.
Whatever adjustments our defense made between last week and this week were fantastic! It looked like a completely different unit from the Indiana game. One of the biggest keys was our defense's ability to get off the field, which has been really the driving factor between this being a great unit some weeks and so-so in other weeks. The Blackshirts held OSU to 2 of 12 of late down conversions (3rd/4th combined). In pass coverage, things weren't quite as tight. We gave up a couple of long TD passes. Granted, these are to some of the top receivers in the country. Regardless, the defense played well enough against one of the countries best teams to give us a chance to win the game. If our defense continues to play at this level our prospects down the stretch are much better. However, consistency is the key!
The Bad- Red Zone Offense. As frustrating as things are with our offense, one of the most frustrating is our red zone offense. Despite not doing all that well as a unit, our offense still managed to pretty much match Ohio State in yardage. The biggest killer for us in this game and in others this season is our red zone offense. On the year, we are 67.86% in red zone efficiency, which ranks 130th of 134 teams in FBS. We rank 32nd in red zone scoring attempts per game, so it isn't an inability to get the ball down the field, but a failure to convert on those opportunities.
In this game, we had four such opportunities. The first came early in the 2nd quarter after Raiola ran the ball 38 yards downfield on a third and long. We had the ball set at the 15 yard line. The next three plays were all losses, including two passes that were completed for a loss (more on these type of plays to come). Fortunately, we still capitalized on the field goal, to manage not being held scoreless on the drive. The second opportunity came on our opening drive of the 2nd half. The offense finally built some momentum with a blend of good passing and strong runs by Dowdell. We worked our way down into the red zone and faced a 3rd and 4 where Emmett picked up 3 yards, which would have put us in position to consider going for it, but instead we got called for an illegal shift which turned it into 3rd and 9. Raiola gets sacked on the next play and we suddenly have a tough 47 yard FG that we managed to still make.
The next, and most damning failure in the red zone occurred after we forced an interception and returned the ball all the way to the OSU 7. Trailing by 5, it gave us an opportunity to steal momentum and the lead. Needing 7 yards, we had 4 runs that totaled 6 yards. Going for it on 4th was the right decision (although you can still question the play calls on that entire drive), but we squandered probably the biggest opportunity of the game.
Our one red zone success came at the start of the 4th quarter where we hit a couple of short/medium range passes to set up an easy one-yard score.
Scoring TD in the red zone isn't easy, since the defense has less space they have to cover. That said, we can't continue to be this bad when we work hard to get in positions to score.
The Ugly- Short passes. I contemplated labeling this simply "offensive playcalling"; but while there are still issues in that respect, I'd like to focus on where we are throwing the ball. Way too often, we are calling for screen passes or are running routes near or behind the line of scrimmage. Take for instance our first red zone trip, on 3rd and 14, we set up a wide receiver screen. The play before that was a completion to Barney behind the line of scrimmage for a one yard loss. There were a number of other times that we decided to throw the ball to someone at or behind the line (whether by choice or design) and it resulted in minimal yards, if not a loss.
I plan on breaking down this specific problem more in-depth later, but you can tell simply in the statistics that we aren't doing much in the long to intermediate passing game. We averaged 4.6 yards per pass attempt on Saturday (compared to 13.8 for OSU), and 7.2 yards per pass completion (compared to 17 for OSU). We simply aren't stretching the field and you can tell that defenses are burning us on that. We want to throw short because we either can't or won't go long, which makes it way harder to throw the ball short. It isn't to say that we can't capitalize on these types of plays, but you certainly can't when the defense is all within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage. For short passing concepts to be successful, you need guys to be able to make plays after the catch in space. But, they can't do that unless there is space to try and make that play.
Overall, the game went way better than I expected. Still a bummer to lose a close game, especially when a win would have been a major upset and secured us a bowl game. This game makes you feel a little better about what the rest of the season might look like, especially after the IU game.