The 21st Century has been good for Ohio State football. 2001 was the inaugural season for Jim Tressel, who made good quickly with a win over rival Michigan and a national championship the following year. When player compensation scandals drove him from the job, the Buckeyes secured Urban Meyer, who immediately went 12-0 in his first season, never lost to Michigan, and led the program to a national championship in Year 3.
How Ryan Day’s modernization of Ohio State’s offense is scary for the Big Ten
Expect the future Buckeyes head coach to add even more of an air raid touch to one of the country’s most talented rosters.
Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
In this century, the Buckeyes have gone 188-31 with a 16-2 mark against the Wolverines. They’ve won at least shares of nine Big Ten titles and participated in the national title game four times, winning twice.
Soon, that amazing run of success is to be entrusted to 39-year-old offensive wunderkind Ryan Day. In January 2018, Day was being promoted to OC and primary play-caller, and in January 2019, he’ll be assuming the job of head coach.
Beyond all the circumstances surrounding Meyer’s time at Ohio State, Day’s elevation is largely about the Buckeyes once again embracing a new direction for their offense and program.
Tressel notoriously brought a simple strategy.
Much like he’d done at FCS powerhouse Youngstown State, he locked down the state of Ohio and signed the best 10 to 15 kids from within the borders every year, then aimed to out-execute opponents.
On defense they cycled in big, powerful linemen and freakish linebackers who could dominate games from typical 4-3 schemes. On offense, it was all about Dave, Tressel’s preferred power-O run scheme that made 1,000-yard backs out of many an Ohioan.
When Meyer took over, he completed a transition that Tressel had begun attempting, turning the Buckeyes into a spread offense.
The goal was still to run the ball downhill between the tackles, but there were a lot of differences now.
When it came to choosing a go-to downhill scheme, power was replaced by inside zone and power-read plays. The Buckeyes were using spread formations to help clear out the middle of the field, which meant getting speedy receivers on the perimeter rather than packing in fullbacks and tight ends inside (something Tressel had dabbled in). Additionally, the Buckeyes often used the QB as the inside runner, rather than the RB. That held true through 2018.
But Day introduced Ohio State to a completely different formula for attacking the middle of the field.
His big update was to install an air raid scheme that he’d used in the NFL with Chip Kelly, the mesh passing concept. By having receivers cross paths in the middle of the field, the Buckeyes could get defenders crashing into each other, opening up targets and throwing lanes. They could then hit speedy wideouts on the move.
For example, on this play from their 62-39 annihilation of Michigan this season ...
... Ohio State is in a 3x2 empty set (three receivers to one side, two to the other, and thus a backfield empty of RBs). Not only are the FBs and TEs out of the backfield (and off the field) but on this play there isn’t even a RB (he’s flexed out wide).
With Day as play-caller, Heisman finalist Dwayne Haskins behind center, and a fast and talented cast of receivers, the Buckeyes watched Haskins shatter Ohio State passing records with 4,580 passing yards at 9.2 YPA, 47 touchdowns, only eight interceptions, and a sack rate of only 3.4 percent.
The Buckeyes still ran the ball effectively with J.K. Dobbins going for 1,029 rushing yards and Mike Weber adding 858 more, but they also had four different receivers with at least 600 receiving yards each.
Day is essentially at the cutting edge of what’s next for modern offense.
First teams started spreading opponents out so that they could run the ball between the tackles. Then they started adding QB run options to make that easier.
Then they started adding pass options, for when teams would crash to stop those runs. They’d throw screens to punish linebackers, and then they started throwing the ball down the field on running plays if safeties were sneaking down to stop the run.
Eventually, many defenses just started playing man coverage on multiple wideouts and simplifying their rules so that defenders couldn’t get caught in no-man’s land on option plays. Michigan’s top-ranked defense was built around playing nickel personnel and a wide variety of match and man coverages, which allowed the Wolverines to take away easy throws while pressuring the QB.
The next answer for offense is to use spread spacing to run man-beating pass concepts and to flood the field with great athletes while hunting for the best matchups. The entire 2018 Michigan-Ohio State game is an example of this.
Here’s another. Oklahoma just won the Big 12 Championship against Texas, a defense playing nickel personnel and some man coverage, with a six-minute touchdown drive that turned a back-and-forth contest into a 39-27 victory. That drive consisted of them running the ball into the line for little or no gain on first and second down, then converting third downs and scoring a TD by getting into four-WR sets and using man-beating routes and hunting matchups.
This play is the culmination of the 7-on-7 era and national recruiting: an Oklahoma school flexing out a 6’3, 234 pound Californian “tight end” and having a Dallas QB throw him a fade route from the slot in order to match him up on a freshman, run-stopping safety.
That’s the style of offense Day is bringing to Ohio State, and that’s how the Buckeyes plan to stay ahead of the rest of the Big Ten.
The last two recruiting classes for the Buckeyes included 11 total Ohioans combined and brought five-star Californian and Elite 11 finalist Tate Martell to wait for a chance to follow Haskins whenever he departs for the NFL. The 2019 class hails from around the country and is currently headlined by five-star Texan and skilled wide receiver Garrett Wilson of Lake Travis High School (which produced Baker Mayfield).
The days of finding ways to pound the ball between the tackles with Tresselball might be over. Much like Alabama and USC, Ohio State is evolving from playing smashmouth football to basketball on grass. It’s a new Day in Columbus, Ohio.
See More:
