Ohio State football mailbag: What's the impact of QB Kyle McCord's game-winning drive?

Ohio State is getting through September unbeaten.

After rallying for a win at Notre Dame on Saturday night, the Buckeyes improved their record to 4-0.

With an idle weekend ahead, there’s plenty of time to continue revisiting the storylines that emerged following the comeback in South Bend.

As always, questions were submitted by The Dispatch’s subscriber text group and were lightly edited for clarity and length. Let’s dive in.

Looking ahead to games with Penn State and Michigan − we fans can do that − can the almost miraculous win against Notre Dame give Kyle McCord, his teammates, his coaches and maybe even the fans more confidence that McCord is a guy who can make things happen when there going gets rough? I, as one fan, now have that growing confidence.

The common refrain heard throughout the Woody Hayes Athletic Center in previous weeks was that McCord’s composure made up for his inexperience. Though he had made only a handful of starts, his demeanor put him in a better position as a first-time starting quarterback, even in a duel with a passer who had started more than four dozen times since 2018.

It was a point taken as the unflappable McCord led the Buckeyes 65 yards in 85 seconds and delivered a series of high-difficulty throws on critical downs over the game-winning touchdown drive. A series like that on a high-profile stage is bound to raise the stature of a signal caller within his locker room.

But McCord’s teammates have all held that they noticed his poise from the pocket long before last weekend.

When I asked wide receiver Emeka Egbuka whether their confidence in McCord had grown in the aftermath of his performance, he made that point and felt a moment like the one from Saturday was bound to happen at some point.

“Stuff like that doesn’t happen by chance,” Egbuka said. “It’s not like he got lucky or anything like that. He’s always that way 24/7. If the offense is shaky or in a tough spot, everyone can look at Kyle, and he’s going to be the most calm person on the field. That’s really encouraging to have, and we all knew that was going to be the case when he took over the starting role.”

Outside of Ohio State’s facility, I’m sure McCord also won over a lot of other believers.

Wondering if Ohio State strategy of not rotating their defensive ends much against ND is in the team's best interest? I noticed NFL All pro contributors like Aaron Donald, JJ Watt, etc come off the field selectively to get a brief rest. Is a Jack Sawyer or JJT after 10 hard snaps as good as a Kenyatta Jackson fresh off the bench for 2 plays to spell them?

The rotation of defensive ends was so tight at Notre Dame that J.T. Tuimoloau and Jack Sawyer played all of the Buckeyes’ 65 defensive snaps, according to Pro Football Focus, a bit unusual for defensive line coach Larry Johnson who has long maintained a preference for, in fact, spelling his linemen to ensure they can go at full speed.

Take last season’s College Football Playoff semifinal against Georgia, another recent game that went down to the wire. Tuimoloau logged 51 out of 62 snaps, while Zach Harrison, the other starting defensive end, saw 49, with Sawyer and Javontae Jean-Baptiste, who were then the backups, seeinge 16 and nine snaps, respectively. That’s a substitution pattern more common for the Buckeyes.

Coach Ryan Day mentioned in August that the top defensive linemen would see a majority of the snaps this season, an indication they were looking to shorten up the rotation in order to lean on their top pass rushers.

But lining up their starting defensive ends for every snap borders on overcompensation. It won’t be sustainable moving forward. Still, the Buckeyes are rarely in games that close during the regular season, and based on the way that Tuimoloau performed on Notre Dame’s last drive, getting to quarterback Sam Hartman for a loss and breaking up his screen pass on the next play, you’d be hard to argue that he was too spent to make an impact down the stretch.

Bottom line: This is probably the exception to the rule as the rotation goes. I’d expect Tuimoloau and Sawyer to share snaps most weeks.

Is there any word how RB share will go going forward? Evan (Pryor) and Miyan (Williams) have been MIA. Love to see Chip (Trayanum) get a few more touches a game especially early, be great to wear on defenses in the Big Ten. Would open things up for a fresher Trey (Henderson) later in games too.

The distribution of carries has looked like this through four games: TreVeyon Henderson (11 rush attempts/game), Trayanum (6.3) and Williams (4.8). Pryor has seen only three carries in four games, all of them coming late in the rout of Western Kentucky.

That’s what I largely expect to see in the weeks ahead. The staff has viewed Henderson as the No. 1 back with Trayanum or Williams being used in short-yardage situations or to change up the pace. The backups might see an uptick in their workload here or there, but a significant shakeup doesn’t seem imminent.

With a week off before Maryland, does that lessen the possibility that players will go through a "letdown" after that grueling win at Notre Dame? Maryland has played Ohio State tough in recent years, so what do the Buckeyes need to do to stay sharp and focused with so much time between both games?

Factoring in rest, I supposed the ideal week to be idle would be the halfway point of the regular season. Somewhere in October. Six games. Break. Then six more. This is the earliest off week for Ohio State since 2016.

But that it arrives a week after such an emotional victory should be a lift for the Buckeyes, who have suffered letdowns in the aftermath of victories over top-10 teams in recent seasons. Following their wild win at Penn State last fall, they were in a slog at Northwestern before escaping the wind and rain, and in 2021, they fell at Michigan the week after routing Michigan State. Adding to the length of the turnaround affords players and coaches more time to come down from the emotional high of beating Notre Dame. They can reset this week before ramping up.

Do you think Ryan Day will ever hand over play calling this season? Saturday was yet another indictment in his play calling.

In spring practice, Day sounded genuinely open to turning over play-calling responsibilities to offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach Brian Hartline, but since summer he’s sounded like someone who wants to remain the primary play-caller in the immediate future. He said in August that he wants bring along Hartline, a first-time coordinator, “the right way at the right time” as a play-caller.

He also said Hartline will have an opportunity to call the offense as time goes on. Is that October? November? Or next season? Day gave himself a bit of wiggle room. But nothing sounded imminent, and as the Buckeyes remain in national championship contention, it becomes more difficult to envision a significant change to their structure without at least a loss.

It's possible Maryland could be 5-0 when they visit OSU. Should the Buckeyes be worried?

Maryland is again tearing through its September schedule. It had gone 3-1 in the first month last season and began 4-0 in 2021. With only an upcoming matchup with Indiana before its trip to Columbus, it should be 5-0 come Oct. 7.

Saying the Buckeyes should be worried is perhaps overstating the stakes, largely considering the Terrapins have not been competitive when visiting the Horseshoe. They have lost all four games at Ohio State by at least three touchdowns and the last three by an average margin of 52 points. The meetings in College Park are the ones that have put the Buckeyes on upset alert.

But the Terrapins appear to be the best team in the Big Ten outside of the title contending trio of Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State, and Taulia Tagovailoa remains behind center. While Tagovailoa has had some blips in the early weeks, including being picked off twice against Charlotte in Week 2, he remains among the best passers the Buckeyes will face all season and another test for a secondary that is looking to prove it’s put last season in the past. Maryland certainly shouldn’t be overlooked.

Any chance of getting Lou Holtz to give that same talk at Senior Tackle the week before the Michigan game! What a motivator 🤣😁

Holtz has provided the Buckeyes with enough bulletin board material in the past few days to cover a wall within the WHAC. Two fresh quotes came Tuesday following his appearance on OutKick’s “Don't @ Me with Dan Dakich.”

“Ohio State is a good football team, but I don’t think they’re a great football team.”

“I don’t believe they’ll win a national championship. I’m not sure they’ll beat Penn State and Michigan.”

That’s top-shelf motivational fodder for Day.

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 Kyle McCord, defensive end rotation