As an Ohio State fan, the 2017 season was rough. The quarterback position was a constantly-negative situation where one side felt very strong about J.T. Barrett’s abilities as a leader and the other side felt very strongly about his lack of abilities throwing the ball. It was a constant debate where neither side was going to be dissuaded, but the other side sure as hell was going to try.
I think it started to wear on everyone.
In addition to the quarterback situation, two big losses to Oklahoma and Iowa dominated the Twitter #hottakes for the entire season. For some, what we saw against Oklahoma was as good as the Buckeyes would be. It is well-documented that no players ever get better and teams don’t gel throughout the season.
Unfortunately, the Iowa game did not quell any of these completely rational thoughts.
Lucky for us, this entire season is now behind us. It was a successful season, but it’s time to look forward. The fan base can now move on and hate each other as we discuss who is going to start at quarterback next year.
But lucky for you, that is just one thing we can all disagree on. Next year, there will be a lot of open spots and a lot of debates about coaching strategy. We are truly #blessed.
Here are the Top-5 things I am looking forward to next year.
1.) Who will start at quarterback?
This will be the first time in a long time that there is truly an open QB battle going into the season. The Buckeyes have been blessed with highly-touted freshmen who come in, start early, and play until they leave. I mean, the closest thing to a true QB competition was probably the Bauserbomb year…and that is iffy. As open as this competition is, I think it is Dwayne Haskins’ job to lose. I am a huge Joe Burrow fan, but I think his injury last season almost completely took away his chance to start at Ohio State.
Is Burrow that much better than Haskins to overcome possibly the best pocket passer to come through in a while? I’ll tell you right now, if Haskins doesn’t win the job he will transfer out. There is no way someone that talented is sitting behind someone for another two years. With that said, I also think Martell will see a lot of game action this year. I see him being used a lot like Tim Tebow was his freshman year. Martell will see a lot of short-yardage and red-zone plays running the read-option because this is obviously not a Haskins strength.
2.) Will the offensive philosophy change?
Everyone wanted Kevin Wilson to come in and revolutionize a relatively stagnant offense. Sure, the offense has put up record numbers almost every year, so how can it really be stagnant? It’s stagnant in the sense that in almost every big game the offense turned into an extremely simplified version and was not nearly as powerful.
This year, it felt like Wilson was able to incorporate some of his system early in the season and it quickly went away. We no longer saw a few staples that worked so well like rub routes or wheel routes. With a more capable passer at the helm, will Wilson be allowed to do more and make the Buckeye offense more resemble his Sooners or Hoosiers offenses? Or will it continue to be simply Meyer’s offense with a different person at quarterback? I am hoping the Buckeyes ride the J.K. Dobbins train and play action off of that…a lot!
3.) How will the wide receiver and tight end position play out?
With the expected change in philosophy, the pass catchers will play a vital role in the offense next year. In my opinion, the Buckeyes have two proven receivers in Austin Mack and K.J. Hill (I’m assuming Campbell and Dixon leave). I shouted it from the rooftops before last season and I will do it again this year. K.J. HILL SHOULD MOVE OUTSIDE! He is the most consistent pass catcher and would dominate on the outside. Outside of those two, they also have two more on the cusp of becoming a force with Terry McLaurin and Bin Victor. Victor has a big offseason coming up. Will he ever make that leap that everyone expected this year? Will he be passed up by some of the talented younger guys?
At tight end, the Buckeyes lose a consistent presence with Marcus Baugh. Who will take his spot? Rashod Berry showed glimpses last year and could be a game changer, but will he move back to DE? Behind him are three big-time recruits in Luke Farrell (#7 TE, 2016), Jake Hausmann (#4 TE, 2016), and Jeremy Ruckert (#1 TE, 2018). Who will step up and become the new starter?
4.) Will this be the most impressive defensive line we have seen?
Ohio State is losing three guys at defensive end who will probably be drafted in the first two rounds. There has to be drop-off, right? Sure, the experience will drop. Sure, the defensive end position won’t be as deep as it was this year. I’ll give you all of that.
Here’s where I am excited about this defensive line. The defensive tackle position will be as deep and as dominant as we have ever seen. Guys like Robert Landers, Davon Hamilton, Jashon Cornell, and Dre’Mont Jones (I’m on Team Move to DE though) flashed a lot down the stretch. Behind them you have guys like Malik Barrow and Haskell Garrett chomping at the bits. Behind them you have the most decorated DT recruiting class the Buckeyes have seen with Taron Vincent (#1 DT), Tommy Togiai (#9 DT), and Antwuan Jackson (#1 JUCO DT). Will any of them step in and have an Ed Oliver type of impact? The defensive tackle position along with the trio of Nick Bosa, Chase Young, and Jonathan Cooper have the opportunity to really become great this season.
5.) Is the weak link going to be linebacker…again?
It was far from a banner year for the linebacker crew this season. Going into the season, it was expected that Jerome Baker, Chris Worley, and Dante Booker would all be very good players. It did not turn out that way at all.
With likely all three positions open (Tuf Borland is the closest thing to a guarantee) and about 47 former 4 and 5-stars jockeying for a position, will they become a strength? Or will the inexperience show? I’m really curious to see how Justin Hilliard, Baron Browning, Pete Werner, and Keandre Jones look this spring. Incoming freshman Teradja Mitchell is one to watch too.
That’s what I’m looking forward to. What about you?
Another good season, but not a great season. Looking forward to 2018. As far as I’m concerned to win a National Champiohip you need luck. You can’t do it with a bad team, you have to be good and have a bit of luck. So write 2017 down as one of those years when we had the team but the god’s didn’t smile on us. Tressel and company going 14-0 is still the gold standard for tOSU history. The god’s were smiling that year. The thing for me looking back, is the amazing throws and catches made by both Iowa and Oklahoma. They made trows into coverages that should have been interceptions and made plays by having the ball where 3 inches would have given our guy the ball.
It wasn’t even that our guys were beaten. They weren’t. Many of those plays would have been incompletions or picks 9 times out of 10. In my opinion Meyer doesn’t have the same grasp of how to play football Tressel did. And how long did Cooper last? 12 years or something. So who knows who this will end.
Meyer will need to be lucky to win an NC. Like his Tom Matte type starter will have to get hurt forcing him to go to a pro-set and he’ll have to have the best future running back in the NFL on his roster, but history has shown, he can get lucky. Like his NC against US when Teddy Ginn got hurt after scoring a touchdown on the opening kick-off. I think the odds are a little longer with him than some coaches but he is good enough to get it done if things go his way. There’s always hope… thinking back about those catches we gave up against Oklahoma and Iowa, I feel the universe owes us one. Maybe next year it will pay us back.
James- your points about the LBs are interesting. Since Baker, Booker, and Worley (and probably someone else I am forgetting) had a BUNCH of tutelage under Luke Fickell, what you are describing is a disaster. This is especially true given the quality of our defensive line, as a reasonable person would conclude that a great d line is any linebacker’s best friend. During the Iowa game- which I would argue was the worst coached and executed OSU football game in decades on many levels- I remember watching a series of plays and focusing on the LBs. The best way to describe what I saw is that they looked like they were performing a Monty Python comedy sketch- as if they were deliberately looking for laughs. To a player, NONE of them looked like they had ever been taught that a tight end is a legal pass catcher. It was surreal…like so many parts of that game. I had become accustomed to an almost automatic high standard of performance from the LBs, and will pay specific attention to them in 2018.
JT reminded me of tebow. Leader, yes, winner, yes, tough, yes favorite of meyer, yes. Polarizing, yes. I was in denver during that time. It almost tore the city apart….but the reality was he could.not throw very well. I am so.glad jt is moving.on. You saw all you need to see in Usc and Wisconsin game. Vs. USC we reverted to tressel ball because the coaches simply didnt trust him. We ran all the time and usc knew we would. Vs. Wisconsin he missed 4 wide open tds, throws Haskins would have made. When it is obvious coaches dont trust the qb the other side knows it. We need a qb that commands respect from the secondary. And by the way, we need a new Wr coach badly. Zach Smith is a joke. Who.has he developed. Routes are poor, techniques are poor.
Fwiw, Zach Smith and OSU have sent more WRs to the NFL over the last three years than any other school. Twice as many, in fact.
my biggest question is the QB spot–I really like Burrow and before his injury people tend to forget he was ahead of Haskins…. but Haskins will be very good too
but my 4 area of most concern/need fixing–in no particular order are—the LBs…the play-calling……and the OL, where we are replacing our 2 best OL and the big leadership role that Price had/was for this team…and like JT or not (I did)–he was one of the best leaders OSU has seen…so I wanna see who will step up to fill the leadership roles with so many captains leaving…..this team has the coaches, players, talent to win a national title–I believe that..so will be exciting to see what develops–at least I hope lol. Go Bucks!
Change philosophy. LOL……that’s funny. We saw CEO Meyers uncannily AWFUL attempt at mixing RPO with Pass Pro. That mess was called 2015 with perhaps the most talented and experienced Buckeye football roster in the last 100 years.
If you’re thinking it’s Dwayne’s job to lose……..buyer beware. Dwayne is a good passer but his arm isn’t even in the same zip code as Cardale Jones. Either the staff has to take a decade to learn how to run a good pass pro BY SPRING, or the offense will be 10 times worse than a clown show. The offense is littered with extraordinary talent being coached by 2nd and 3rd (a even worse) tier level coaches. CEO Meyer has shown no cohesive philosophy away from the RPO and that just isn’t going to change.
Bringing in Coach Grinch I suspect has to do with trying to develop the LB position. Davis took that unit from being among the nations VERY best to a disaster in the course of a year with a group of guys why had a ton of experience and talent. That wasn’t disappointing, it was infuriating. Watch Schiano slide down to LBer to babysit Davis.
As long as Larry Johnson is at Ohio State I personally have exactly no doubts about how that defensive line will play. They will be beasts up to at least the 2 deep.
I get a kick out of people who like to come out with the “if you’re such a good coach why aren’t you coaching” silliness. If you actually watch football for something other than a night (or day) at the movies eating popcorn and slurping cola’s, it is a pretty easy game to understand. You don’t have to be a coach to see things that are broken and even have a decent idea why it’s broken. Or even have an idea of how to fix it. I don’t need an auto mechanic to tell me the radiators blown when antifreeze is gushing out of it from every angle. Nor do I need a pilot to tell me we’re going to crash when the plane is missing it’s wings and nose diving 40,000 feet back to earth. Nor do I need to be a coach to point out the fact that a quarterback can’t throw worth a damned, or a lineman move well enough to block a defender. Radiator smoke rolls off of both when you pop the hood and simply take a look.
The Buckeyes must have some of the worst fans in college football. JT holds most of the offensive records at Ohio State and many at the Big Ten level as well. However to may fans, he just wasn’t good enough. He may not have had the strongest arm, but he sure knew how to win, and isn’t that how to rate the QB position.
Just some thoughts from another Monday morning QB.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL
Paul- If you think OSU fans are bad, you must not have met fans from UM, ND, or Ped State. Now, THOSE folks bring new meaning to the term “delusional”! I will also point something out, and this comes from a JT Barrett fan- he had a LOT of help winning those games. Like most QBs, JT was a lightning rod whether the issue was success or failure. The more savvy fans recognize that the real issues with the offense this year were philosophy and game planning vs the better opponents, NOT with JT Barrett.
Dan Marino had a boat load of gaudy stats as well. Championships…..ZERO.
Blah blah blah the last 2 years Burrow or Haskins shoulda been starting. If you think those records prove greatness then you need glasses. JT was a good leader, a good kid and a competitor, but an awful QB. Any quality team proved that. I don’t blame JT. I blame the coaches.
A few thoughts. Haskins has a great arm, but any quarterback needs some time to throw. Same with Dobbins – needs a hole to run. So, the offensive line is a key. They have to step up in every game. Also, while J. T. had many strengths, no QB could consistently line up with an empty backfield on third down and make the yardage on a QB keeper that everyone knew was coming. That has to change.
Center is a question mark as well.
Is Isiah Prince good enough to hold down left tackle?
Linebacker is a dumpster fire. Boreland is great in run support but when his assignment is the RB and they flare him out for the wheel route? He can’t keep up. He is limited athletically to cover that much field. Its almost a free play.
Spot on with all of that, in the same order. Good stuff. The offense has GOT to get fixed and I believe that will happen if Urban Meyer actually learns to trust Kevin Wilson and hands over the reins, with only some overall, sporadic situational and philosophical input. Just give Wilson the reins and see what happens. I think we will see something closely resembling the Cardale Jones offense.
Brandon and Bluegrass- this article and you are both right on. On the offensive side, I am most concerned about OSU running a true offense rather than a gimmick one. The single most important factor in this occuring is not the development of the O Line, its not even the identity of the new QB- its whether this head coach can escape his mania with making the QB a “hero” at the expense of the other offensive players. The recent practical result of Meyer’s obsession is that OSU creams weaker opponents due to sheer talent, then the offense comes to a screeching halt when the other team has talent and plays defense. Here’s to a 4th and 1 being run under center with a back behind the QB, here’s to a PASS being thrown to Parris Campbell rather than quick tosses in the backfield, and here’s’ to RBs who can gash a defense being allowed to do it for an entire game! Defensively, I do believe fans were sold a bill of goods with the 2017 LB starters. I can’t wait to see Borland, Harrison, Browning et al see minutes without older LBs being allowed to play due to some “lifetime achievement” award like in high school. We have lots of great players returning, hopefully they will be turned loose.
I almost entirely agree with you. At one time the RPO was a devastating development in offensive strategy. As defenses began getting bigger, faster and maybe even smarter, at least in recognition, processing, and execution, RPO is more rapidly headed the same way as the wishbone, triple, pistol option football. Even Army finally broke ranks with true triple option and began more read and power mixed with elements of the triple option so that they can better adapt live to what defenses are throwing at them. While they lack some of the measurables (size, speed etc) they make up for with outstanding execution mixed with more traditional triple option blocking. It’s fun to me to watch how they’ve married the various concepts. RPO concentrates on creating numbers advantages and superior athletes with somewhat less emphasis put on technical execution. It still requires an outstanding ball handler and QB who is adept at reading defensive lines and to a little less degree, linebackers. That made JT Barrett the perfect guy to run pure RPO. What he lacked, and he clearly lacked it, in passing, he could generally make up for with being uncanny at reading and deciding which option to select during plays. He’s a tremendous horizontal quarterback, but quite frankly, unless he’s really feeling it, a lousy vertical QB. He was CEO Meyers ideal.
With today’s defensive speed and smarts the RPO has become the wishbone or wing t with predictability. Programs with equal talent render it dead in the water UNLESS the quarterback can also stretch the field consistently.
Where I disagree some. The linebackers under Luke Fickell were outstanding. The same guys Davis turned into mundane position dwellers. I guarantee we would NOT have seen the 2017 linebackers look so awful for most of the time had Luke still been coaching them. Prior to Ohio State Davis never developed a linebacker that wasn’t already previously taught at the college level. As a pro linebacker coach he was used to getting the best of the best from around the Country. He was predictable coming into the 2017 season. He was lost having to develop the necessary skills that PUTS guys into the NFL. Can he learn it? Probably, if he has the time and the current CEO has the patience to develop him as a coach. Right now though, he’s lost on the farm. That’s why we saw an almost catastrophic decline from the LB position in such a short period of time. It’s one thing to toss in a playstation game and press play, like he was able to do in the NFL. Something quite different when you have to write the software program before you can press play.
The talent (the ideas) is on the roster. They just need a developer to bring the idea’s to reality.
Winner, winner chicken dinner. Especially in regards to Meyer’s 16 yro playbook. It was innovative in its day but now everyone has seen it, played against it and can defend it. Time to move on. Please let Wilson be Wilson.