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Vo. 2, No. 6
This week in Ohio State football, Maryland is coming to town, but that was only part of the larger conversation surrounding the Buckeyes.
Now squarely in the middle of the season and with a tough stretch of the schedule just around the corner, Ohio State is starting to round into form — maybe.
Ryan Day had a couple of long, interesting answers to questions about personnel and scheme, two of our favorite topics around here of course.
More on that after we break down what Ohio State is going to face from the Terrapins.
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What to know about Maryland
The Terrapins are 2-3 and have lost three in a row.
After falling 35-26 at Virginia Tech in Week 3, they were blown out by UCLA and Nebraska the last two weeks.
The Bruins and Cornhuskers look much-improved this season, but that is probably not where you want to be in Year 8 for head coach Mike Locksley.
A Maryland native who views this as his dream job, Locksley is 39-52 as the head coach of the Terps and seems to perpetually be on the hot seat. Regarded as an ace recruiter at previous stops, including Illinois where he helped put together the Fighting Illini team that upset No. 1 Ohio State in 2007 under Ron Zook, he has been able to attract talented players to Maryland but not turned the raw material into winning teams.
This looks a lot like other versions of the Terrapins with some obvious studs at various positions but not a lot of football acumen overall. (To wit, they are one of the most-penalized teams in the country.)
To make a long story short, this has been a poor man’s Penn State for a long time, and that appears to be the case again this year.
Maryland’s traditional stats are not too impressive, and neither are their advanced metrics at CollegeFootballData.com.
The Terrapin offense is 94th in success rate but 22nd in explosiveness, so there is some big-play ability, and that shows up on passing downs.
The defense is 90th in success rate and 69th in explosiveness allows. Dig deeper and they have a solid defensive line yards ranking (32nd) and defensive havoc rate (54th) but are just 129th in the nation in success rate on passing downs.
From a personnel standpoint, Malik Washington is their big star.
A 6-5, 227-pound sophomore QB, he leads the Big Ten and ranks sixth nationally in completions per game (24.8) and is also in the top five in the conference in passing yards per game (257.6). After only a season and a half, Washington already ranks seventh in Maryland history in career completions and completion percentage, and he’s already in the top 10 in passing yards.
He’s also thrown six interceptions over the past two weeks.
Chris Durr Jr. is second in the nation behind Jeremiah Smith in catches per game 8.4. He’s 16th nationally and second in the Big Ten in receiving yards per game 92.2. He brings some real juice, as was apparent on his 65-yard touchdown catch at Nebraska last week.
Like the first two Big Ten teams Ohio State has faced, Maryland has had some guys in and out of the lineup at tailback and therefore doesn’t have a bell-cow back.
DeJuan Williams earned All-Big Ten recognition last season and ran for 78 yards last week against Nebraska after missing three games with injury. He led Big Ten running backs with 45 catches last season and has some burst so this offense should test the Ohio State defense in myriad ways.
The defense? Maybe not. They have a few guys who stand out in the front seven, but so far this isn’t a unit that has been very good other than getting after the quarterback. DD Holmes and Derrick LeBlanc lead the sack attack with 2.5 apiece.
Last week, Maryland enjoyed a fine start at Nebraska but imploded in the second quarter and didn’t look like they were all there in the second half.
The Terps had a chance to take a three-score lead when Washington threw a devastating pick-6 that instead got the Cornhuskers within two points.
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What else is going on this week with Ohio State football?
The week began with Ryan Day offering a bit of a soliloquy about playing youngsters at Ohio State. In short, they have lots of guys with the talent to play early, but they still have to earn it.
That was the subject of my weekly, “Most interesting thing I heard at Ohio State” over at BuckeyeInsiders.com…
Is it getting late early for guys like Legend Bey and Khary Wilder to carve out roles for a team with national title aspirations? Maybe, maybe not.
On Wednesday, Day opened up about where he sees the Buckeyes from a schematic standpoint on offense and defense, a more in-depth look than we usually get at this time of year from a coach:
“I think what you saw on offense was a team that combined 11 personnel and 12 personnel, under center and shotgun, run game, RPO, under center run and play action pass. And I think the combination of zone scheme, outside zone, and gap scheme, combined with all of those things, really puts a lot of challenges, especially when we have someone like Jeremiah on the perimeter. I think when we're playing really good situationally and executing in those areas, we can put a lot of stress on defenses.
“I think on defense, you're seeing multiple fronts. You're seeing multiple groupings. Now, I think we have to continually try to figure out how much of that we need to settle into. I think we're still working through that, but I do think we're getting an idea of who gives us the best chance to win on first and second down and who gives us the best chance to win on third down against each grouping. Now, how can we make those somewhat hybrid I think is an important step that we need to take as we continue to move forward through the middle of the season. I think you're also seeing us play a combination of man and zone, and I think you're seeing us blitz more than maybe we have in the past.
“So, I think we're seeing us find that identity, and we're having some success, which we did this past week. So, we've got to keep solidifying that as we go. Do I think it's done yet? No, absolutely not. I still think it's a work in progress, but we are making some progress.”
Also over at Buckeye Insiders we continue to churn out great content on the Xs and Os of the Buckeyes:
Ross Fulton broke down the offense against Iowa and came away with what Arthur Smith is doing to get the ball to Jeremiah Smith and also try to squeeze what they can out of the running game.
Defensive scheme guy Michael Pettit also examined some of the things Matt Patricia did with the defense, including playing more Cover 2 and mixing in more sim pressures, which are kind of like the famed Dick LeBeau zone blitz but with only three or four guys actually rushing. The Buckeyes also showed a unique technique for stopping the run.
I wrote something for the Associated Press about Day’s desire to see the special teams pick it up while he is happy with the progress of the running game and defense….
Buckeye Sports Bulletin also took a closer look at Day’s complaints about the special teams: Ryan Day is Down on Special Teams…
Over at PressProsMagazine.com, my college Jeff Gilbert gave an overall assessment of the Buckeyes through five games and concluded one thing in particular is key to the rest of the season (it starts with a ‘c’).
Back here, I had my weekly recap of what was going on with Ohio State 25 years ago in the first season of Jim Tressel’s time as head coach of the Buckeyes.
Of course you also don’t want to miss my weekly Buckeye Historian newsletter breaking down what you need to know about the serious with Maryland, which is brief but has some odd entries already.
(Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss this next week! It’s free! And if you are already subscribing, can you help spread the word by forwarding this email, sharing the link on social media or sending someone this link? I sure would appreciate it!)
BONUS CONTENT
Aside from this newsletter, I’m also sharing my thoughts on the premium messages board BuckeyeInsiders.com and BuckeyeSports.com.
Beyond that, I’m writing for multiple sites, including primarily PressProsMagazine.com, The Associated Press and MensJournal.com.
At Men’s Journal, I had my weekly preview of the college football weekend and some red-hot video game news.
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