Ohio State football mailbag: Will end to QB competition lead to more explosive offense?
It’s been an eventful week at Ohio State.
An extended quarterback competition between Kyle McCord and Devin Brown ended on Tuesday. Buckeyes coach Ryan Day announced that McCord, who started the opening weeks in wins over Indiana and Youngstown State, would remain in the role full-time.
That high-profile position battle led off our mailbag for a second consecutive week, followed by other questions on the offensive and defensive lines and more. Let’s get into it.
Note: Questions are submitted by The Dispatch’s subscriber text group and are lightly edited for clarity.
Do you expect the offense to be more explosive now that Coach Ryan Day will be focused on only one QB?
Continuity at quarterback should provide a lift for the Buckeyes moving forward, most obviously in their weekly game prep.
With the competition unsettled, McCord and Brown had been splitting reps with the first team in practices. But those are not to be divvied up quite as much now.
“Kyle will get a little bit more than he has the last couple of weeks,” Day said.
The additional time should allow McCord to establish more cohesion with the rest of the offense, especially his timing with receivers and tight ends. Brown will still take some first-team reps, but Ohio State is now preparing for opponents with a clear-cut starting quarterback.
It’s pretty reasonable, as a result, to expect tighter chemistry to form and for that side of the ball to be more in sync, leading to some more explosiveness. Even between Week 1 and Week 2, it went from averaging 5.7 yards per play at Indiana to 8 against Youngstown State. Reps matter.
Continuing the competition into the season afforded Day and the rest of the staff a longer period of evaluation of the passers, and it’s likely they feel more secure in the decision, but the risk was limiting their time to jell with the rest of the unit.
Hey Joey, why isn't our d-line getting sacks against these weaker teams, IU & YSU? Is this a sign of future problems?
Let’s make a distinction between the two games.
Indiana ran a lot of option in Week 1, attempting to pass on just over 40% of its snaps, a script that limited shots for the Buckeyes’ defensive linemen to tee off on its quarterbacks. OSU defensive tackle Hero Kanu brought down Brendan Sorsby in the fourth quarter, and that was Ohio State's only sack of the afternoon.
The following week, Youngstown State took a more conventional approach, airing it out a little more. It threw the ball 47% of the time. The Buckeyes still had just two sacks, one by linebacker Tommy Eichenberg and another by defensive tackle Mike Hall Jr.
So the Buckeyes' sack total is down. They have the second-lowest in the Big Ten, in fact. Teams just aren’t dropping back all that much against Ohio State. The 47 pass attempts the Buckeyes have faced are the 13th fewest out of 133 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision through two weeks.
But even accounting for fewer opportunities to rush the passer, Ohio State’s sack rate is 6% (three sacks on 50 dropbacks), a percentage that would have put them in the middle of the pack for defenses nationally last season.
This weekend’s matchup with pass-happy Western Kentucky should be a better gauge of the Buckeyes’ rush, but considering how up and down they have been in converting pressures into sacks in recent seasons, it’s fair to raise an antenna.
What type of improvement should we be expecting from our O-line? Is it pass blocking or run blocking?
For all the angst over Ohio State’s offensive line, it’s held up in pass protection, surrendering two sacks through two weeks and allowing McCord and Brown to be pressured on only 18.9% of their dropbacks, according to Pro Football Focus. For a comparison, Stroud, while protected by a line anchored by two All-American tackles, was pressured 23.4% of the time last season. The line is going to face more formidable fronts in the months ahead, but that’s an encouraging start for the group as far as that's concerned.
The most glaring issue, and the area that needs to see the most improvement, is in run blocking. On rushes where Ohio State has needed 2 yards or less for a first down or touchdown, the Buckeyes have gone one of eight, a power success rate of 12.5%. That means they need to get a better push or advantage off the line of scrimmage.
Offensive line coach Justin Frye mentioned after Wednesday's practice that they need to become more aggressive in their blocking, a step that would help in those short-yardage situations.
"We’ve cut down on mental mistakes," Frye said. "We’ve got to execute at the point of attack."
Is Day going to cede any more play-calling duties? His calls have been mediocre at best so far, and I'd like to see what Hartline can do at least.
Probably not yet. Day said last month that he would handle a “majority” of the offensive play-calling early on and cited a desire to bring along Hartline “the right way at the right time.” Based on those comments, this juncture feels too soon.
Keep in mind that Day has been calling the offense for the Buckeyes since at least 2018 and Hartline is in his first season as the coordinator without play-calling experience. If there is going to be a shift, it seems like it’ll be really gradual.
Why didn't No. 21 Evan Pryor get in the Youngstown game in the 4th quarter? If coach Day & running backs coach (Tony Alford) aren't going to play him, he should plan on hitting the portal.
Pryor was in line to be the Buckeyes’ third-string back last season before tearing a patellar tendon in his left knee and has since been surpassed on the depth chart by Chip Trayanum, who started out as a linebacker last fall. He’s either RB4 or RB5 with Dallan Hayden.
Carries were in short supply last week and those in the fourth quarter went to Miyan Williams and Trayanum. They had two apiece through three quarters, then each got four rush attempts in the fourth quarter. There are just a lot of mouths to feed in this backfield.
If a game with Michigan or Penn State were held this week (home or away), what would be Ohio State's chances of winning given what we know about all three teams?
The Big Ten East has overtaken the SEC West as the toughest division in the sport. All three teams are ranked in the top seven of the polls, and a matchup involving either Michigan or Penn State would be a toss-up game for Ohio State if held this weekend.
My feeling is that the Nittany Lions are going to be a tougher test than expected in the preseason. Not only were they emphatic in opening wins over West Virginia and Delaware, prevailing by a combined margin of 101-22, but Drew Allar has given them a higher pedigree at quarterback. Allar, a former five-star recruit, has passed for 529 yards and four touchdowns with a 78.2% completion percentage through two weeks. That’s an upgrade over Sean Clifford.
Michigan’s first two games have mirrored Ohio State’s start. Underwhelming, at times, before prevailing against overmatched opponents. The Wolverines, who owe much of their recent success to their effectiveness in the trenches, rank only 75th in the FBS in rushing offense, averaging 150.5 yards per game against East Carolina and UNLV, a precipitous dip from the past two seasons when they averaged over 200. Running back Donovan Edward's mere 46 rushing yards on 18 carries has been an especially odd development.
Hi Joey, I wanted to follow up on Herbie's "15% fringe" notion. Does this actually hurt our recruiting and don't all the major programs have this insatiable 15% lunatic fringe? Are our crazies crazier than SEC crazies and does it hurt us with families? That's what I've got!
There’s no question a segment of Ohio State’s fanbase is hard on the program, as ESPN analyst and former Buckeyes quarterback Kirk Herbstreit referred to as the “lunatic fringe” in an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” last week.
But I don’t see how that group, no matter how mad online it gets, really has much effect dissuading high school players from enrolling at Ohio State. Otherwise, it would not have signed four straight top-five recruiting classes or maintained the third-most talented roster in the nation, based on 247Sports’ Team Talent Composite.
College football is a sport that tends to breed reactionary fans who are quick to target the coach and quarterback. It's certainly louder in certain pockets of the country, but part of the DNA everywhere.
In my last season covering Southern California at the Orange County Register in 2018, fans financed a plane to carry a banner calling for the firing of Clay Helton before the Trojans’ final game at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Helton was only a season from leading them to a Pac-12 championship.
Scanning the current landscape, you can find Clemson message boards calling for Dabo Swinney's firing after the Tigers lost their season opener to Duke. This is a program that won a grand total of one national title before Swinney led them to two in the College Football Playoff era.
It's a fickle sport.
Joey Kaufman covers Ohio State football for The Columbus Dispatch. Follow him on Facebook and X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. He can also be contacted at jkaufman@dispatch.com.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State football mailbag on quarterbacks, Kirk Herbstreit comments
