The 2018 Ohio State football team hasn’t looked much like the stereotypical Buckeye squad in a lot of ways.
The defense gave up big play after big play and ranked among the worst in the nation for much of September and October.
The team threw the ball more than any OSU team in history, breaking passing records on an almost weekly basis.
And for a full month, it couldn’t get a run game established, even against bad competition.
The Buckeyes averaged 3.2 yards per rush in the dramatic comeback at Penn State, 3.2 while beating Indiana, 2.9 in a win over Minnesota, and 3.0 against Purdue. You probably remember how that one turned out.
It was absolutely stunning to see a team that routinely put up numbers nearly double that against far better competition in 2017. OSU ran for 5.2 yards per carry against Penn State and 5.7 against Wisconsin. Both of those teams finished in the top-10 of the final polls after winning New Year’s Six games.
During the Buckeyes’ off-week, the coaching staff sat down and evaluated everything about the run game to figure out how to fix it.
The answer: dump the run/pass option plays.
The impact was immediate. Against Nebraska, J.K. Dobbins rushed for 163 yards on just 23 carries. It was his first 100-yard game since against TCU in mid-September.
Weber rushed for 91 yards on nine carries against the Cornhuskers, and then put up 104 yards on the ground against Michigan State, the top rushing defense in the country. It was his first game with 100+ yards since the season-opener against Oregon State.
“He earned every yard. And the offensive line earned every yard,” said head coach Urban Meyer on his Thursday radio show.
The game was about more than just stats for Weber. The trip to East Lansing was a homecoming of sorts for the Detroit native as well.
“It felt good. I had a lot of family there, from uncles, aunties, Grandma, parents, brothers and sisters, so it was real cool to have a good game in front of them,” Weber said.
The junior running back said it’s not a matter of being clever or deceptive, but of the offense just asserting its will.
“Really just to go at dudes. Try not to be more into the scheme, but more just attitude and just running guys over and running right at guys,” Weber said. “That was our attitude, and it’s been working out for us the last couple weeks.”
After the Nebraska game, multiple offensive linemen were outright thrilled to see the RPOs deemphasized and pure, downhill running return. Following another solid performance on the ground, Weber was happy with the results, too.
“I think it’s better to have more straight-forward runs. That way there’s no confusion and there’s no timidness towards it. If you just run at guys like we’ve been doing, old-style football it’s going to work out for us. Eventually the defense should break,” he said.
Wednesday, left tackle Thayer Munford said that everything changed after the 49-20 loss at Purdue.
“A couple weeks ago, everybody was saying ‘oh, the offensive line can’t run the ball’ and we were like ‘forget that. We’re about to run this ball and just shut everybody up,'” Munford said. “Everything is just attitude. Just how we take things and how we take the field. We said this week we’re about to go over there and just run the ball on them. Pure, point blank.”
The RPO isn’t totally gone. Offensive coordinator Ryan Day said read plays are still being used, but not as often as early in the season. That has just meant finding different ways to move the ball on the ground.
“When you’re running the ball, you have three different options. You read somebody, you run away from somebody, or you kind of change the look and splash the waters a little bit,” Day said.
“We’ve kind of found different ways to do that. We have had some plays where we’ve been reading a guy, but also some ways we’re running away from the guy or possibly splashing the water.”
Weber is a veteran now, and has seen in person what can happen late in the season if a Buckeye team can’t run the ball. He was there for the 2015 loss to Michigan State, the 2016 playoff loss to Clemson, and the 2018 Purdue loss, all of which saw the Buckeyes failing to reach even 4 yards per carry. He knows what this team has to do in the coming weeks.
“You’ve got to have a good balance, especially like you said in November,” Weber said. “It gets really grimy and really good teams start to show up. I feel like if we keep our balance, we’ll be a good team.”