Ohio State Football Notebook: ‘Literally every play can be a touchdown’

Given An Inch, Taking A Mile

The Ohio State offense is currently clicking on all cylinders. In Saturday’s 49-14 win over Marshall, the Buckeyes ran for 280 yards and passed for 289 yards.

Head coach Ryan Day is always stressing offensive balance, and he got what he wanted. Balance isn’t always a statistical thing, however. It’s also about being able to do either effectively.

The Buckeyes clearly have the personnel on the ground and through the air, which is making life very difficult for opposing defenses.

“Yeah, I think it’s huge,” quarterback Will Howard said after the game. “I think people respecting everything, and not just the receivers, tight ends — who those guys can make plays too. In the run game, me getting my legs going, all these different things present challenges for defenses. The more ways we can attack them and the more people we can get involved, the harder it’s going to be for them.”

Running backs Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson had touchdown runs of 86 and 40 yards, respectively. Receivers Emeka Egbuka and Jeremiah Smith had touchdown catches of 68 and 53, respectively.

“I was sitting on the sideline today, and I was talking to some of the other quarterbacks, Devin [Brown] and Julian [Sayin], and I was like, ‘Our offense is so explosive. It’s crazy,'” he said. “I mean, literally every play can be a touchdown. If we block everything up and get everything, every play could break for a touchdown. It’s exciting. It also makes it kind of fun.”

The Buckeyes had seven rushes of at least 11 yards, and four passes of at least 28 yards. They averaged nine yards per carry and 16 yards per completion. Along with the protection from the offensive line, this is what a quarterback would call the perfect situation.

“You never know when Trey’s going to go take a run that should have probably been tackled for an eight-yard loss and just stiff-arm somebody into next week,” Howard said. “Quinshon superhero slamming somebody. It’s fun, and it makes it exciting, and you never know what’s going to happen on any certain play. For me, I’ve just got to do my job. I’ve just got to keep us on schedule and be sharp, and I think we did a good job of that today.”

Nitpicking Picks

Any time an Ohio State quarterback throws an interception, generally the first question he’ll get is about that particular play and why it happened.

In Saturday’s game, Will Howard’s first interception as a Buckeye came on a deep shot down the right sideline to freshman wide receiver Jeremiah Smith. It was a 50/50 ball that Smith got his hands on, but Marshall cornerback Josh Moten came down with the interception.

What did Howard see?

“Sometimes things happen,” he said. “I think looking at it, the boundary was clouded, so I couldn’t go to the boundary. You’re max protected, so I had three routes. So it was either that or my vertical wrap, and my vertical wrap was covered. That was really the only option I had, and the plan all week was to let that thing rip and put it on the spot.”

Moten had position the entire route, but that’s never actually eliminated Smith’s chances of making a play. Howard has seen it from the first time he and Smith hit the practice field, and those experiences will always give him confidence.

“I’m going to trust Number 4 every day of the week and he’s going to go make that play,” Howard said. “Sometimes things happen. It’s football and we had to come back and bounce back. And you know what, it’s part of the game and it’s about how you respond. I think we responded really well and nobody batted an eye. We just went back to work and kept going.”

Ticked Off At Kickoffs

Saturday was a very good day overall for the Buckeyes, but it wasn’t perfect. One of the areas of imperfection came via kickoffs, where place-kicker Jayden Fielding put three-consecutive kickoffs out of bounds.

A kickoff out of bounds is a procedure penalty and puts the ball at the 35-yard line. Three second-quarter kicks in a row, Marshall was given tremendous field position. The Thundering Herd eventually turned the field position on the third kick into a 65-yard touchdown drive to end the first half.

Fielding was replaced after the third kick by senior walk-on Austin Snyder.

What was Ryan Day’s reaction?

“Yeah, you know, I didn’t really get into it. We put Austin in there and I thought he did a nice job,” he said. “So we’ll evaluate [Fielding] and see if there’s any tweak or something that happened in the hip or whatever, but either way we can’t have that. I mean, that’s putting our defense in a terrible situation. Having three out of bounds in three drives, on the 35-yard line, that’s completely ridiculous, so we’ve got to get that fixed, however we do that.”

Day isn’t above letting a veteran like Fielding work through his issues during a game, but not at this expense.

“You get to the point where you want to let somebody play through it, but then at some point there we’ve got to make a change,” he said. “So I thought Austin did a nice job of stepping in there and then doing a good job of kicking the ball.”

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