Summer Preview: Ohio State Buckeyes

The Ohio State Buckeyes are fresh off of a National Championship victory, and hungry for more success this season. It was the culmination of three years of work by head coach Urban Meyer, though the title run was full of unlikely occurrences. The Buckeyes used two different freshman quarterbacks to win the first College Football Playoff, after Braxton Miller suffered a season-ending injury before the team’s opener against Navy in Baltimore, MD. This season, Ohio State has a problem that every single coach in the country would love to have: they have to decide between 3 extremely talented and proven quarterbacks.

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The Offense

When Meyer was hired to be Ohio State’s head football coach in 2012, he was coming off of a very odd exit at Florida. After the Gators’ Outback Bowl win over Penn State in 2010, he left the team, citing family and health reasons. Like many coaches, he had worn himself thin in Gainesville. Unlike many coaches, he took some time off to recuperate. He has since made many changes to his lifestyle and his coaching style. He spends more time with his family, and less late nights in the office. However, one thing that hasn’t changed is his offense.

Meyer is one of the fathers of the modern spread-to-run offense. From 1996 to 2000, he was the wide receivers coach at Notre Dame under both Lou Holtz and Bob Davie. For the last two years of his stay in South Bend, current Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen joined the Irish staff as a graduate assistant. When Meyer was hired to become Bowling Green’s head coach in 2001, he brought Mullen with him as his quarterbacks coach. The two men installed their spread-to-run system and executed one of the best single-season program turnarounds in college football history. After two seasons in Bowling Green, Meyer was hired as the head coach at Utah, where his spread offense really started to grow. While he only spent two seasons in Salt Lake City, he had a huge amount of success once again. His system, paired with Mullen’s coaching, made a star out of quarterback Alex Smith, who became the first selection in the 2005 NFL Draft.

Most of Meyer’s success came at Florida, where he was the head coach from 2005 to 2010. His biggest accomplishment came during the 2008 season, which saw the Gators beat Oklahoma to win the National Championship. Tim Tebow was his offense’s star, and fit perfectly into Meyer’s spread-to-run system. Mullen was his offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach until after the 2008 season, when he was hired to the post which he currently holds, head coach for the Mississippi State Bulldogs.

So what exactly does Meyer’s famous offense entail? At its core, it is a spread system which usually spreads the field with 3-4 wide receivers at a time. It is almost always run out of either pistol or shotgun formations. Like most modern offenses, the quarterback is the most important position. Meyer likes to run his quarterbacks a lot, and prefers large-bodied young men who can take a beating between the tackles. Smith and Tebow were perfect examples of what he looks for in a quarterback. He doesn’t necessarily need to be fast, but he must be a good ball-carrier who can make good decisions in the option game.

It is a spread-to-run system, which means that he will look to run the ball between 55 and 60 percent of the time, both with his running backs and his quarterback. Meyer’s offenses have always boasted excellent running backs, most recently Carlos Hyde and Ezekiel Elliott. Most of the running is done between the tackles, with the outside running done by the team’s H-back. The H-back is one of the most important positions in Meyer’s offense, and one that is fairly unique around college football. This position is usually filled by a slot receiver or running back who has excellent quickness and can run or catch very well. He usually lines up in the slot, and will come in motion to the backfield with regularity. From here, Meyer can hand him the ball on jet sweeps, execute power lead options, or run play-action passes off of this motion. Having a player with this versatile skill-set is crucial to this offense’s success.

Miller is expected to be Ohio State’s starting quarterback in 2015, so how does he fit this offense? Oddly enough, Miller is not a typical Meyer quarterback. He is a bit small, and has better agility than a player like Tebow or Smith. Meyer tends to alter the offense to include more outside option runs for Miller than he would for a bigger-bodied player like J.T. Barrett or Cardale Jones. However, Miller’s decision-making abilities and experience in the system make him a clear choice to run this offense in his senior season.

Elliott will return as the team’s running back after having a breakout season in 2014. He is a powerful runner, which Meyer tends to prefer in his running backs. However, he also possesses very impressive speed for a big man, allowing him to get to the secondary very quickly. He is very similar to Hyde, who was a bowling ball between the tackles, but Elliott may have better speed. After struggling to find an H-back during the 2012 season, Meyer has many options at this all-important position. Jalin Marshall and Dontre Wilson are the two primary options here, and both are very dynamic playmakers. Both are very similar in size, standing just under 6 feet tall, and weighing in around 200 pounds. They are both able to carry and catch the ball very well, and fit perfectly into what Meyer wants his H-back to do.

No matter who Ohio State’s starting quarterback is, there is an amazing amount of talent at all of the skill positions, making this a very scary unit for opposing defenses to face.

The Defense

After the 2013 season, the Buckeyes got rid of co-defensive coordinator Everett Withers, who went on to become the head coach at James Madison. The team brought in Chris Ash to work with Luke Fickell to install a more aggressive 4-3 defense. Ash’s base defensive formation was a 4-3 over front, which tends to promote team speed defensively. It is becoming a popular way for team’s to combat spread offenses, and can become more of a 4-2-5 system with a hybrid linebacker/safety if the team chooses to head in that direction.

Ash likes to play quarters coverage, which is actually a fairly conservative principle. This is the system that Pat Narduzzi ran for Michigan State during the last few seasons. However, Ash pairs this quarters coverage with aggressive linebacker play. The goal is for the linebackers to bump inside receivers and constrict passing lanes. Naturally, since linebackers are not usually blitzing, a lot of emphasis goes on the defensive line’s ability to rush the passer and stop the run.

Joey Bosa is one of the best players in college football, and will spend yet another season terrorizing opposing offensive lines. The star defensive end racked up 13.5 sacks last season, including one against Maryland in October. His speed and quickness off the edge is what makes many analysts believe that he could be the number one pick in the NFL Draft next year. Adolphus Washington is an excellent defensive tackle for the Buckeyes, and Vonn Bell is a very good player at this defense’s all-important safety position. Ohio State’s defense ranked 26th in the country last season in points allowed, but stepped up down the stretch to lead the team to a National Championship.

Q&A with Tim May

This week, I was able to speak with Tim May, a sports reporter for the Columbus Dispatch. Tim has covered Ohio State football since 1984, and I thank him for his very insightful responses.

BSL: The biggest news in Columbus this off-season has obviously centered around the quarterback competition. The Buckeyes have three legitimate quarterbacks on their roster in Braxton Miller, J.T. Barrett, and Cardale Jones. Do you believe that one player will win the job outright coming out of fall camp, or will we see a multi-quarterback system from Urban Meyer?

May: You meant three legitimate starting quarterbacks. All have an impressive resume, from Miller and Barrett finishing fifth in the past two Heisman Trophy votes, respectively, to Cardale Jones being the starter of record in the greatest post-season run in major college football history. Meyer intends to take an analytical approach to naming a starter based on performances in preseason camp. Past that, who knows what he and his coaches will do. Be quick with the hook? Play two (like he did with Chris Leak and Tim Tebow in the 2006 Florida national title season)? I’ve got the feeling all three will see some significant time at some point this season.

BSL: Carlos Hyde was a tough act to follow at running back for Ohio State, but Ezekiel Elliott didn’t back down from the challenge. While most of the focus this off-season has been on the quarterbacks, the Buckeyes have one of the best young running backs in the country ready to do more damage in 2015. What aspects of Elliott’s game do you expect to improve the most after an incredible sophomore season?

May: Elliott went for 220 against Wisconsin in the Big Ten title game, 230 against Alabama in the Sugar Bowl national semifinal and 246 against Oregon in the championship game, and he did it all using just one hand, his right. He suffered a broken bone in his left wrist in preseason and could not use that hand for carrying the ball or for blocking — an under-appreciated part of his overall game — all year. So in theory, he should be better, especially considering four the five starting offensive linemen return.

BSL: After a 2012 season that saw Urban Meyer desperate to find a player who could fill his important H-back role, two players stepped up last season in the form of Dontre Wilson and Jalin Marshall. Both averaged over 10 yards per touch last season, with Marshall scoring touchdowns both through the air and on the ground. Who do you believe fits Meyer’s H-back role better, and could we see both players on the field at the same time in opposing slot receiver positions?

May: Wilson suffered a broken bone in his right foot in the win at Michigan State and played just two more plays after that in mop up duty against Oregon just to have it on his record. He was just starting to show what he could do when the injury occurred. Marshall, meanwhile, blossomed as an all-around threat. Remember, he was in fact the backup quarterback in the post-season should something have happened to Jones. The coaches like his potential. But they also are trying to work speedy running back Curtis Samuel into the equation.

BSL: While they weren’t the dominant unit that they have been historically, the Ohio State defense improved last season to become a fringe top-25 unit. The obvious star of the defense is junior defensive end Joey Bosa, who many experts have predicted will be one of the first selections of the 2016 NFL Draft. What can people expect from Luke Fickell and Chris Ash’s unit in 2015?

May: The unit was just learning the new system brought in by Ash last year, and it started to click late in the year. It turned into a big-play defense as the year went on, especially in the playoffs. I mean, the shutout of Wisconsin and its running back Melvin Gordon in the Big Ten title game was one of the great defensive efforts in Ohio State history. And the way the Buckeyes throttled potent Oregon in the national title game was also worthy of praise. Not just Bosa, but DT Adolphus Washington, linebackers Darron Lee and Joshua Perry, and safety Vonn Bell will be considered among the elite at their positions this year. No one was really naming names from OSU’s defense this time a year ago.

BSL: After winning the National Championship last season, the Buckeyes will obviously have a large target on their back, and will get the best out of every team that they face. With that being said, they are still an immensely talented team who will naturally want to repeat as National Champions. How do you see this season playing out for Urban Meyer’s squad?

May: Barring a spate of injuries, the Buckeyes will be favored in every game they play, and justifiably. But there is a gantlet to be run. The last two games of the regular season are at home with Michigan State and at Michigan, which expects a renaissance under new coach Jim Harbaugh. If things go according to the forecast, the Buckeyes then will dive into another three-game post-season. Just because they made that last part look easy last season doesn’t mean it is. But they certainly are equipped to make another run.