In today's episode of the Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning podcast, Ross Fulton, one of the Scheme Insiders from BuckeyeInsiders.com, joins host Tom Orr to discuss three things he's expecting to see from the Ohio State offense, as well as three areas of concern. Here's what he's expecting:
More Making Plays Look Alike: To paraphrase the late great football coach Homer Smith, a key to offensive football is making plays look alike. If a defense can tell one play from another, they can play fast. If all your plays look alike, they have to play slow. To that end, I expect that Arthur Smith will do a better job layering plays together compared to the Ohio State offense last season. The run game will be based off a few core concepts—particularly outside zone and duo—and may use fewer concepts than last season. But Smith will build more play action and bootleg concepts off of those run plays. This should allow Ohio State’s offense to be more explosive, as an effective run game with play action can force teams out of using cone coverage against Jeremiah Smith and open holes behind linebackers.
More Under Center: To accomplish point 1 above, I expect more under center from Ohio State. In addition to providing the offense the ability to run the same play in either direction, under center aids play action in that the quarterback turns his back to the defense and the fake can be more drawn out. In addition, while Julian Sayin is not a real run threat on designed quarterback runs or run reads—lessening the value of shotgun to the offense—he is mobile enough and throws well on the run such that he is effective off bootleg action. Notably, Sayin was effective off bootlegs in the second half last year against Indiana, as teams were often overplaying the run action. While I certainly do not expect the shotgun to go away—it remains effective for run-pass-options—I do believe that under-center will be a more heavily featured part of the offense.
More Quick Game: I likewise think that Smith will take advantage of Sayin’s skill-set by using more underneath quick game concepts such as slants, hitches, and quick outs. Such an emphasis would be consistent with Ryan Day’s focus on putting receivers in a position where they can gain yards after the catch.
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