This Week in Ohio State Football: Texas (again)

Vo. 2, No. 2

This week in Ohio State football is a pretty big week.

The Buckeyes play Texas (if you haven’t heard).

This will be the third time in three seasons they play, an odd circumstance since they are not in the same conference or old-time rivals.

And yet they might be less familiar with each other than one might expect — a sign of the times to be sure.

Let’s take a closer look (after the ad break)…

Ohio State and Texas have played five times previously, and four of them were very taught affairs.

The exception, as you can read in my new Buckeye Historian newsletter published Thursday, is the only previous meeting in Austin. Ohio State won that one 24-7, though it was arguably closer than the final score.

Texas ran the ball effectively and stopped the run, but the Longhorns made some poorly timed mistakes with young Colt McCoy at the controls.

The other games really could have gone the other way based on just a play or two, something Ryan Day discussed this week.

Does that mean Texas is due for a break or two? Will home field be the difference this time?

I am not inclined to think so. The former isn’t really how it works, and Ohio State has played pretty well on the road over the years.

Both teams have their quarterbacks back, and we should expect to see much different versions of both Arch Manning and Julian Sayin.

Texas loaded up on offensive skill players out of the transfer portal (RBs Raleek Brown and Hollywood Smothers and WR Cam Coleman). Whether that is to prevent Manning from having to carry too much of the load or to maximize his ability to run a high-powered offense remains to be seen.

Ohio State, on the other hand, is mostly running it back on offense from last year. The exception is Devin McCuin, who ironically is a Texas native who starred at Texas-San Antonio last season and looked good in game one against Ball State.

The Buckeyes made significant additions on defense (S Earl Little Jr. DL James Smith, LB Christian Alliegro), though it was to plug holes rather than upgrade what they had.

Parsing the talent difference is difficult — a fool’s errand, I wrote for staff predictions at BuckeyeInsiders.com — but I do see a big potential difference.

When Ohio State has the ball, we will get offensive coordinator Arthur Smith matching wits with defensive coordinator Will Muschamp.

These are two real veterans of the game in new positions this season, and I’m wondering if both changes might benefit the Buckeyes.

You no doubt know well if you are reading this newsletter Smith comes from the NFL, where he was a successful offensive coordinator and so-so head coach.

His best value might be in how he organizes his staff and plans for games, two things I don’t think were in the wheelhouse of Brian Hartline last year.

Texas defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski did a good job dictating terms to Ohio State the last two seasons, taking away the big play and forcing the Buckeyes to try to run the ball against light boxes, which the OSU offensive line wasn’t equipped to do.

Smith should be more adept at avoiding this, but Muschamp has a different approach anyway.

Muschamp has been around a long time. Most of that has been spent in college, though he’s a descendant of the Nick Saban tree, which has NFL roots as well.

While Ohio State had a very conservative game plan last season to protect Sayin in his first start, the Buckeyes came out guns blazing for about 1.75 drives in the CFP Semifinal at the Cotton Bowl two years ago — then barely could do anything the rest of the game aside from one play and one drive.

On the other side, the Texas offense is the baby of Steve Sarkisian, and he’s not gotten a lot done the past two years despite having five-star quarterbacks at his disposal against two different Ohio State defensive coordinators.

The Cotton Bowl against Texas was probably the finest hour of Jim Knowles’ up-and-down tenure as Ohio State DC. He kept the Longhorns off balance all night — they basically abandoned their base offense and had to rely exclusively on constraint plays like screens to move the ball.

Last year, Matt Patricia silenced the doubters, including myself, with a significantly revamped defense for game one of the season against the Longhorns. He set up his future first-round draft picks to win one-on-one matchups and had Texas guessing all afternoon.

Takeaways from rewatching Ohio State-Texas

The most interesting part of the chess match figures to center on Jeremiah Smith.

Kwiatkowski did a good job of limiting Smith’s touches the past two seasons.

Will Muschamp be able to do the same?

If he does, the onus will be on McCuin, Brandon Inniss and perhaps freshmen Chris Henry Jr. and Brock Boyd (another Texas native) to take advantage of opportunities like Carnell Tate did last year.

The cadence is also something to keep an eye (or an ear?) on as it came up this week among the things that Ohio State could have to change before going into another big game. That’s because there’s some thought the silent count they used against Indiana and Miami last season really put the offensive line behind the eight ball.

Seems simple, right? But sometimes these things happen, and these games often are won in the margins.

I wrote early in the week about the most interesting thing I heard from Ryan Day’s preview press conference:

Over at PressProsMagazine.com, Jeff Gilbert wrote about wanting to see more of these types of games and notes that although Ohio State and Texas have played the past two seasons, not much is familiar from the first two matchups. Julian Sayin, Arch Manning, Ryan Day and Steve Sarkisian are exceptions.

Jeff also notes Ohio State needs to run the ball better. I agree…

In his press conference, Sarkisian touched on many topics, including what’s gone wrong in those goal line stands by the Buckeyes, what makes Ohio native Rasheem Biles “a problem” in the Texas defense and why the Longhorns didn’t run the ball better while blowing out Texas State last week. (Sound familiar?)…

If Ohio State wants to run the ball better, it might have to get its offensive line stabilized. Day said this week they are still evaluating their best lineup after Phillip Daniels, who had a good day against Texas star Collin Simmons last season, was benched for part of the Ball State game…

As for previewing the Xs and Os of the matchup, you’ll be hard-pressed to beat what Ross Fulton brings over at Buckeye Insiders.

In his review of the Ball State game, Fulton noted the Cardinals gave Ohio State some issues with a lot of slanting and changing defensive fronts, something that has been a recurring problem. The coaches adjusted by changing how they blocked their zone plays and getting better support from the receivers. More reps might just make a difference, too.

As for this week, Fulton broke down some of the things Muschamp did last week with the Texas defense. He’s joined the party of playing lighter boxes to try to stop the run while limiting explosive plays, but look for some opportunities anyway as he will still go Cover 1 at times. Their pattern matching secondary could present opportunities for miscommunication and coverage busts. (Also recall Ohio State torched a 2022 Georgia defense Muschamp coordinated, and the Buckeyes have had their way with a similar style at Oregon.)

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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.

Plus I’m now running two other regular features here at the newsletter:

Buckeye Historian: Recapping the Texas series

Tressel Tales: Sept. 11 Terrorist Attacks Pause Season

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