One year ago, Ohio State’s wide receivers had just four receptions of 40 yards or more — and two of those came in the first game against an extremely overmatched Bowling Green team. Meaning, that they had just two more such plays over their final 12 games, which is just a terrible, terrible number.
Further, the Buckeyes produced just 13 receptions of 30 or more yards last year, which was 25 fewer than what Penn State managed.
Each of these numbers were near the very bottom of the Big Ten, which should never really happen in any statistical category at a place like Ohio State.
That lack of explosive production was one of the areas the Buckeyes set out to fix prior to this season. In the spring and fall camp, the most popular topic around was OSU’s work on the deep ball. Even early in the season it was still a topic. Results were mixed early on, but the results over the course of this season have been undeniable.
Ohio State led the Big Ten with 11 pass plays of at least 40 yards, and their eight plays of 50+ yards were twice what anybody else in the conference was able to manage. A year ago, the Buckeyes had just two completions of 50 yards or more, which was the same number that they produced in 2015.
Back when Ohio State was prolific with the deep ball in 2014, they managed just two more 50-yard completions than this current team has, and the 2014 team had 15 games and Devin Smith and Michael Thomas.
The 2017 team has also produced one more pass play of 60 yards (4) than the 2014 team.
The OSU receivers walked into plenty of questions before the season, and they have answered them very well this season — including in their last outing in the Big Ten Championship Game.
“You go into the season with so many expectations and you hear things about how things should go or did we do enough, and we went into the season with a chip on our shoulder as a group,” said receiver Terry McLaurin.
“We didn’t make enough plays last year and we really challenged ourselves from spring on to be one of the stronger units on the team. And we knew that we were going to go into some games where we had to make big plays to shift momentum or win the game. So it starts with your leaders like me, Parris [Campbell] and Johnnie [Dixon] and it meant a lot for us to do that on such a big stage against Wisconsin.
“Obviously you can’t necessarily focus on all the outside noise, but at the same time there’s a standard here and we just try to uphold it. And I feel like we’ve got one more game to solidify.”
The Buckeye receivers — or Zone 6 as they refer to themselves — didn’t set out to prove the doubters wrong. They weren’t actively listening to them. During any media session with reporters, however, they heard all of the questions and doubts, so they couldn’t even ever really get away from what was being said about them.
Instead, they simply set out to be better than they were the previous year.
They put in the work required to be productive and consistent. They believed they were on the right track. The results in practice were positive on a daily basis, but there were struggles early in the season, which continued the onslaught of doubters.
Things began to change around game three or four, but it wasn’t until a bit later in the season when they knew definitively that this year was different than the last.
“Penn State. J.T. went 16 for 16,” McLaurin said. “That just is a testament to the way we practice and we practice on two-minute. I believe those last two drives we went straight two minute, all passes and we didn’t have any incompletions. So I feel like that was a little different than last year. We were clicking on all cylinders.
“We went from Parris to me to Johnnie to Ben to Austin. Every guy was making plays and beating their man and that’s what you want in your receiver group and your quarterback to execute at such a high level in a big game. So that’s the game I knew it.”
The 39-38 comeback win over Penn State was an incredible passing performance by all involved. The irony, however, is that the Buckeyes haven’t been able to produce a 300-yard passing day since that game, and J.T. Barrett has thrown eight interceptions in the five games since.
Despite the lull, it is impossible not to have seen the improvement that this group of receivers has made.
In two weeks, they’ll pit themselves against a USC defense that has allowed 13 receptions of 40 or more yards, which is the most in the Pac 12.
In other words, more big plays should be coming for the Buckeyes, just as they set out to do once the work began on the 2017 season nearly 12 months ago.