| So with 2 weeks to rest, recover and renew following the debacle in West Lafayette, what Ohio State team do we get for the stretch run? Ohio State may have been sleepwalking through October, but if history is any indicator, they won't be this week. Seemingly nothing gets Urban Meyer's attention like that red N. In three meetings with Nebraska as Ohio State's coach, the Buckeyes aren't just 3-0, they are a convincing 3-0, putting up 63, 62 and 56 points, and winning those 3 games by an average score of 60-18. Scott Frost is what Urban Meyer was about 15 years ago, the new hot shot offensive minded head coach, and while early in the year it seemed like the Huskers might be at least a year away from getting the pieces together on that side of the ball, Frost has done an excellent job of accelerating the timeline. Three weeks ago, Nebraska put up 31 on a Northwestern defense that allowed 20 to Michigan, 19 to Michigan State, 15 to Rutgers and 17 to Wisconsin in its four other recent games. Then they hung 53 on Minnesota. Last week there were 8 minutes left in the third quarter before Nebraska's first punt against Bethune-Cookman. Nebraska fans like winning, however it comes, but they'd like to see a little bit of defense played along the way. Even Bethune-Cookman moved the ball decently enough against the "Blackshirts," but turned the ball over three times. This is still a Husker Unit giving up over 500 yards per game in Big Ten play, including over 300 through the air. So enter Dwayne Haskins, and his three consecutive 400 yard passing days. He's done it while completing 71% of his passes with 11 touchdowns and 3 interceptions. The issue is why is Ohio State throwing the ball over 50 times a game? Because they don't trust their defense, and their running game continues to struggle. How do you complete 49 passes for 470 yards, and still only score 20 points? Because the offensive line continues to struggle to run block. It's really starting to get to J.K. Dobbins, who hasn't broken the 100 yard mark since the TCU game, and has now gone four consecutive games below 3.5 ypc. Prior to this four game stretch, it had only happened once in 18 games. He had only been held under 5.0 three times. S&P+ grades the Buckeyes as the #68 line in the FBS, but if they allowed you to break it down by date, my guess is they'd be much lower in the past month. And #68 is with a top 15 nationally sack prevent rate, so it shows you just how much that run blocking is dragging the whole thing down. Ohio State, by all reports, spent the bye working almost exclusively on the run game. Nebraska is giving up over 200 yards per game, and both of the top end Big Ten teams they've face (Michigan and Wisconsin) gashed them on the ground. Ohio State still has their issues, and they might just not be correctable enough this year to keep their streak against Michigan alive. But coming off the bye week, against an opponent that seems to always bring out the best in Meyer, in front of a home crowd, I think we see the best Ohio State we've seen all year. I think they find a way to turn yardage into points, which they've struggled with recently, going only 4-9 in the red zone the past two weeks, with no touchdowns, and for one Saturday, look like the Ohio State we thought we'd get this year. |
