Ohio State Buckeyes new offense is just getting started
Channel: Sport Team
Date: 2017-09-01

LOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Headed into the 2017 college football season, the Ohio State Buckeyes promised us that they were going to expand their offensive menu. For the first few hours of the new season, they gave us the familiar taste of melba toast. Then, just as social media, the national media and even the fans who'd followed them into the grandstands of enemy territory all began to turn on the team, they turned up the heat. A much-needed douse of hot sauce that quickly brought the nation back around to the second-ranked Buckeyes as a national title contender.

"We haven't thrown it deep around here in a minute," head coach Urban Meyer said at night's end, staring at a stat sheet from the 49-21 win over Indiana. "And we looked like we hadn't in a while, didn't we?"

Meyer, he of the once-cutting-edge spread option, spent spring and August practice grinning and smiling and talking about "reviving the deep ball" and swearing that his bland Big Ten meatloaf would this season come with a side -- not a full serving, a side, let's not go crazy here -- of some Big 12-ish willingness to throw the football downfield.

After all, he'd hired a new offensive coordinator, discarded former Indiana head coach Kevin Wilson, a man who'd made his name in the world of Big 12 scoreboard-tilting madness, working as offensive coordinator at Oklahoma in the 50-points-per-game Sam Bradford era. During his time at the wheel in Bloomington, his offenses had posted the second most points per game of any Big Ten team versus Meyer's Ohio State juggernaut. And it just so happened that Wilson would be making his Ohio State debut calling plays against the team that fired him, packed with defensive coaches he'd hired and defensive players he'd recruited.

So, naturally, the Buckeyes came out slinging and dinging and blasting off chunks of yardage like a slick new scarlet-and-gray air force, right?

The final breaking point for Meyer was also the moment that perfectly exemplifies the typical recent Ohio State football experience. They were good enough to grind their way into the playoff, but were run out of the building once they got there, via a season-ending 31-0 loss to Clemson.

Those who went to bed before the end of Thursday night's official 2017 college football season opener (and at a chilled-molasses pace of 3 hours, 55 minutes, there were likely many), will click on the box score and it will look very much like what everyone expected to see.

After all, the spread was 21 points. After all, Barrett, on most preseason Heisman Trophy watch lists, penned a very nice final stat line: 20-35, 304 yards, with three TDs and added another 61 yards and a TD with his feet. After all, the second-ranked team in the land was supposed to win its 22nd straight against Indiana and Urban Meyer was supposed to add to his undefeated 16-0 record in season openers and ... well, there was literally an entire page of such "Why are we even playing this?" streak statistics included in the pregame media handouts.

But for those who watched the game in its entirety, they know it wasn't that easy. They know that for nearly three quarters it was a tugboat race. With 4:38 remaining in the third quarter, the Buckeyes were deep in their own territory, trailing 21-20 and listening to "O-ver-ray-ted!" chants from the home crowd. Those in the stands who'd traveled in from Ohio said nothing in response.