I may not have expected Ohio State to suffer its first loss of the season in the Big Ten championship game, but the reasons the Buckeyes lost the game weren’t surprising. As many Ryan Day-led teams have done during losses, the Buckeyes lost at the line of scrimmage, struggled situationally and were plagued by a key special teams error. The Hoosiers simply made more plays when it mattered to snap the Buckeyes’ 16-game winning streak. However, I don’t think Ohio State did itself any favors with its slow tempo.
One of the calling cards for this year’s Ohio State team has been its slow tempo. For much of the duration of this season, the Buckeyes have run their offense nearly as slow as any team in college football.
Day, Ohio State’s head coach, has indicated his team’s slow tempo was employed intentionally. Day reasoned that Ohio State’s methodical approach had made it so that his team would be fresh in the postseason, because his team had run so many fewer plays than many others in the sport. With some teams having to play in up to 18 total games because of the elongated postseason, it’s understandable why Day would be especially concerned with keeping his team fresh.
That rationale makes perfect sense to me, but now that Ohio State is in the postseason, I don’t understand why it’s still using a snail’s pace on offense. Even after Ohio State’s loss to Indiana, I still think Day’s squad is the most talented and probably the best team in college football. With that thought in mind, it doesn’t make sense to me why Ohio State would only want to run 56 plays in a big game.
Take the second half of the Indiana game, for example. With only 18 seconds remaining on the game clock, Ohio State was just starting its fourth drive of the second half. Indiana’s ability to convert on third downs partially worked to keep Ohio State’s offense off the field, but the Buckeyes also hurt themselves by eating up over 17 minutes of game time with just three possessions.
Ohio State’s slow pace made it so that a couple of key mistakes in the red zone, including Julian Sayin’s failed sneak on fourth down and a short miss from kicker Jayden Fielding, were especially perilous. Of course, it’s hard to expect to win a game against the No. 2 team in the country when you have a couple of pivotal red-zone errors, but you would also expect to go on more than three drives (excluding the last drive of the game, which started with only a handful of seconds left on the clock) in an entire half.
There is a time and place for a slow, methodical offense, but the type of methodical approach the Buckeyes are working with should be reserved for games against Rutgers, not matchup games against Indiana.
It made sense last year when Michigan often tried to slow games down with its running game, but that team struggled to complete a forward pass. I’m not saying the Buckeyes should just use a no-huddle offense, but when you have receivers as talented as Carnell Tate and Jeremiah Smith, there’s no reason to go so slow.
