Today’s Topic: What Progress Was Made In OSU’s Return Game?
Urban Meyer’s plan to win always incorporated field position.
The further back the opponent starts, the better. The closer your team starts to the opposing end zone, the better.
No, it’s not rocket science, but Meyer did have percentages for likelihood of scoring depending on field position that he believed in and relied upon. That was data. It was historical, and it likely will not change under Ryan Day. Why? Because Meyer’s “plan to win” was fairly effective.
There isn’t much live kicking and covering of kicks in the spring and fall camp simply because there’s a lot of collisions involved.
They will drill the blocking, the maintaining of lanes, the kicking, and the fielding of kicks, but only so much is done full speed.
The Buckeyes have covered punts and kickoffs well over the years. Some didn’t like Meyer’s desire to kickoff into the corner. Kickoff coverage has been somewhat neutered with the new fair catch rules, but covering punts is still very important.
And oh yeah, Ohio State has lost their best coverage man in receiver Terry McLaurin.
Some names attempting to replace him this spring were sophomore receiver Chris Olave and junior cornerback Jeff Okudah.
“Big shoes to fill there,” special teams coordinator Matt Barnes said this spring. “This early in the game, I could rattle off 15-20 names for you. But the reality is we need to find one, two, maybe three guys that separate themselves that really go take the job, and that’s what we’re trying to sort through right now.”
The good news is that they’ve all seen exactly how it should be done.
Because of the standard set by McLaurin, Barnes was asked if replacing McLaurin is impossible.
“Impossible? I don’t ever like to use the word impossible,” he said. “Will it be difficult? The bar is as high as a bar could be. He was fun to watch and having been on the other side of that last year, he was a problem. He really was you gotta double him and even then, you’re not sure because he can probably outrun those guys. Again like I said before, big shoes to fill with that position.”
Unfortunately for the Buckeyes, the shoes to fill in the return game haven’t been quite as big.
Ohio State has only had one or two dynamic kickoff returners this decade in Parris Campbell and Jordan Hall.
Barnes obviously wants to change that this season, and guys like redshirt freshman H-back Jaelen Gill, fourth-year junior running back Demario McCall, and possibly freshman receiver Garrett Wilson could all get a look, among others.
The key, however, will be security.
“Fortunately, we’re not kicking off this weekend so we’ve got some time to sort through all that stuff,” Barnes said. “But whoever we put back there is going to make sure that we at the very least possess the ball at the end of the play and give us an opportunity to hit some home runs.”
The same holds true at punt returner, where KJ Hill returns for possibly another go-round.
Last year, the Buckeyes top two returners — Hill and CJ Saunders — averaged a little under six yards per punt return.
While Hill has the best hands on the team, guys like Gill, Wilson, and sophomore receiver Chris Olave were also getting looks at punt returner.
“Time will tell,” Barnes said. “The good thing is we’re not kicking off this weekend so we’ve got some time to sort through that and figure all of that out, but again we want to be an explosive return unit. So, we’ll make sure whoever we put back there affords us that opportunity to be an explosive return team.”