Ohio State v. Toledo: Offensive Analysis

Upon further review, the Ohio State offense has good and bad news it can take away from its closer than desired game against Toledo.  The good news is that most of the errors were results of technique and failure to recognnize what the defense was doing.  Ohio State's offense was not getting beat, but instead largely shooting themselves in the foot.  The bad news is that these mistakes reflect an inexperienced unit, and OSU's young players are going to have to learn and mature quickly.  OSU will also be greatly helped by the return of Jordan Hall and Jamaal Berry, as they are limited offensively without players that can stretch the defense.

The Toledo Plan:  Sell-Out

Toledo's defense clearly came into this game with a fire every gun in the bullet attitude.  They were going to take some aggressive chances and let the chips fall where they may.  Toledo generally played 8 men in the box:  a 4-3 under with the backside safety walked up as a weak side linebacker.  But the Rockets' aggressive style did not end with placing an extra man in the box.  Instead, Toledo would generally assign at least one safety and/or linebacker to play vertically downhill as soon as they saw run action.   They also set their deep safety at ten yards and had them leaning towards run.

These unaccounted for backfield players caused recognition difficulty for the OSU offense all game long.  The below clip demonstrates this.  

    First, the Toledo defensive philosophy is readily apparent.  Toledo has 8 in the box with their three remaining backfield players all ready to be active in run support.  Next, Toledo then sends their Mike immediately on run action.   Second, the clip shows OSU's problem all game with defense recognition.  OSU runs a G-pull power play (sending the FB away from run action).  Marcus Hall pulls and runs right by the Mike who is sitting in the hole.  The OSU line, tight ends, and backs made this same mistake the entire game.  They were trying to block the play as it was drawn on paper, rather than keeping their eyes open and reacting to the defense.

Here is yet again another example.  OSU runs a six man, full slide sprint-draw protection.

  For whatever reason, however, Reid Fragel gets locked on to the Sam linebacker, leaving the backside defensive end unblocked, and leaving Fragel simply standing around being a non-factor  Again, this is simply a mental mistake that is fixable, but will continue to shoot the offense in the foot.  Throughout the game, mental breakdowns would appear from one player, but that mistake can prevent an otherwise successful play.

The Dave Play and its Limitations

No where was the Buckeyes' failure to correct diagnose what Toledo's defense was doing then with OSU's famous (or infamous) "Dave" play.  It is often overstated how often OSU runs the power play.  But in the first half versus Toledo, it was not overstated.  OSU repeatedly went to the Dave play.  Yet this yield meager results, for several reasons. As noted above, the pulling guards repeatedly allowed unblocked Toledo linebackers to cross their face without picking them up, guaranteeing a lost play.  More generally, the gap blocking scheme by its very nature is going to struggle with teams that are sending defenders from every angle, because the play is designed for linemen to demarcate who they are blocking pre-snap.  The play can handle stunts and blitzes, but that requires the offensive line to be very aware of the gap they are blocking and work in unison together, which OSU was not accomplishing. 

Finally, if you are going to run Dave against stacked fronts, the tailbacks must understand how the play is designed to work.  The tailback must either immediately get vertical if the hole is there, or draw those extra defenders into the hole, and then bounce the play outside. 

 

OSU's current backs simply do not run the play well, and have difficulty reading the line.

The OSU Gameplan (?)

More generally, OSU's opening game plan was difficult to understand.  Besides Dave, the OSU first half run game consisted of constraint plays, without any threat of the base play.  OSU ran multiple wide receiver fly sweeps and shot gun quick toss plays.  Why they can be effective when the defensive is overplaying its hand, the quick toss play is simply not going to work against a secondary playing like Toledo's because an offense does not have adequate point of attack blocking.  The offensive flow that was evident last week was largely absent.  Two explanations could explain this.  One, perhaps the OSU staff really was trying to give Miami false keys, though I generally think the extent coaches attempt to do this is overstated.  The other is that much of this game plan could have been put together with Jordan Hall in mind, and his late suspension made it too late to alter.

To the coaches credit, the second half largely reverted to what worked well in week one--lead zone and sprint draw passing.  Dave was largely non-existent and replaced with stretch.  Clearly, the current offensive unit runs stretch better than any other run play.  It assisted the offensive line in dealing with the Toledo defensive games by allowing the line to keep their eyes up field and block their zone.  Whenever the line correctly performed their assignments, they controlled the lien of scrimmage. 

Carlos Hyde also does a nice job running the stretch play, getting the defense moving laterally then sticking his foot in the ground and getting up field.  The lead zone also helped OSU negate the eight man fronts by running away from the walked up eighth man and making him a non-entity.

The lead zone plays also best fit Joe Bauserman.  Bauserman is best working the mid-range passing game off of play-action.  Dave simply does not have a good accompanying play-action pass.  Bauserman needs the play-action passing game to force him to not hurry and to work the plays that help him get the ball downfield, such as the post-dig combo and deep comeback routes, from which we saw several long second half pass plays.

The Upshot

OSU is self-evidently going to continue to face stacked fronts.  The answer is not simply to say that OSU needs to throw more.  You cannot pass or run only based upon how many are in the box--otherwise you are letting the defense dictate your choices and taking you as an offense away from your strengths.   Instead, OSU needs to run the football in a way that negates the eighth man, and the tailbacks have to be responsible for beating that eighth person.  OSU does, however, have to make teams pay for letting their safeties play like they are linebackers.  OSU repeatedly tried to get the ball vertical to little effect.  OSU had receivers open, but Bauserman put too much air under the football, making the receiver slow down and allowing the DB make a play on the ball.

Bauserman played serviceably, though he certainly has ways he can improve.  The deep ball is one example, but another is that he must not panic in the pocket, but instead hang tough and allow his receivers the opportunity to get open.  Pressure is inevitable, and you cannot sacrifice the play immediately. 

But Bauserman's limitations are clear, so the coaches must put the offense in a position to succeed.  That means that you need to have your base run play, and then each of those run plays must have a dropback and bootleg play that look just like those run plays.  Bauserman has shown he can be effective on hitting mid-range passes when the defensive back seven overplays run.  In other words, the offense must work cohesively together, because they do not have the advantage of a Terrelle Pryor who can do many different things.

OSU must also get the football to players who can make plays.  Not to be a broken record, but OSU very much needs Jordan Hall back.  Devin Smith also showed he is ready to play, and brings a vertical threat.  Less self-evidently, Jake Stoneburner is being brought off the field way too often.  As a tight end, he makes that eighth defender respect the potential vertical threat, thus opening up the run game even if you are going to run.  Finally, I still think Braxton Miller needs to be used situationally, to force the defense to adjust and allow him to make some plays with his feet.   

Another way to put the above is that OSU has things that are fixable, but they need to be fixed.  This goes from the offensive game planning to the individual players.  That said, OSU was one mistake--the Rod Smith fumble while driving--from going up two touchdowns and icing the game.  Ideally, OSU will use the film evidence to learn what works, and fix the technical mistakes and move forward.