Grade the Buckeyes: Hawaii

[WANG]

Overall - C-: I haven't been more disappointed in a 38 point win and shut out in my life. OSU looked listless on offense, putrid on STs, and the coaching was ugly. The Silver Bullets looked great, and I have a feeling that a lot of the unpreparedness can be attributed to the VERY short week, but if this team wants to repeat, they can't have excuses. If it weren't for the outstanding play of the defense, this grade would be even lower.

Offense - D: They were out of sorts from the first snap and never really figured it out. The OL looked bad, allowing too much penetration on run and pass plays, committed too many penalties, and overall looked very sloppy. Jones was not good, holding the ball too long and not making great decisions. JTB looked just as bad in relief. Zeke looked okay, but just over 100 yards on 27 carries if a very poor showing. Even Brax didn't impress. Just a disappointing outing overall from the unit.

Defense - A: How can it NOT be an A? The defense looked dominant, and if not for them this game may have ended in a dogfight. Turnovers, TDs, sacks, the D did it all this game. Hawaii didn't find success anywhere, with under 100 yards rushing and under 100 passing. Their starting QB's QBR was 4, that is a damn fine performance. Daron Lee showed again why he is a bonafide first round pick, and Gareon Conley continues to impress across from Apple (how long until offenses STOP trying to pick on his side of the field?). In an otherwise dismal performance, this group came to play. Big shout out to the Silver Bullets.

STs - C: Not as bad as the first game, but still not good. Kicking the ball OOBs...I get it, Meyer has said it happens when you try to directionally kick the ball, but it still drives me nuts. Marshall had a decent return, Cam had some okay punts, and they made their FG, but overall, just not good.

Coaching - D: The coaching staff for the first time since VT last season had this team woefully unprepared. Be it a short week, a let down after a big(ish) game, or just overconfidence, they coaching staff was not prepared for Hawaii. Luckily, talent over shined preparation, but that won't happen every week.

[buckeyebikerbabe]

I'm giving them an overall C+. I buy that the week of prep was shorter than most and they were pretty banged up - mentally and physically - from the Monday primetime game. But the O line was pretty awful and the QB's were all over the place and didn't look very sharp. The D overall played well, but Vonn Bell should have had a career nigh6t - if he had caught a couple of those other int's that were thrown right at him. I know the coaches are trying to figure out exactly what their O weapons are for down the stretch, but Zeke should always be the featured player out there. Always.

A win is a win, but it was way too sloppy and way too unstructured. And if Urban makes anyone who gets a penalty run extra laps, then he should be out there running with them this week!

[TH1Bucks]

Im gonna roll with a OA C as well. Short week or not we are deep enough to overcome and should have looked allot better on Offense. With the way Sparty looked vs the duckies we have some work to do or we will not even get to Indy ! Still hard to sit here a biatch over a 38 pt shutout win at home but we are defending champs and should have rolled Hawaii by 50 ish. Spread was 41. With our schedule we are gonna need to cover every week !

Offense = D, QB situation I hope was due to the short week as IMO Hawaii did nothing special on D that we wont see moving forward and with bigger better players so I Pray. Ya zeek got 100 with 3 td's but if he and the run game cant turn it up more than that we are in for some close games late in the year. In order to shine Cardel needs the run game to shine.

Defense = A, D was stout ! Hopefully they continue to shine and allow the Offense to get their legs going.

ST = C, was better but still not the level we are going to need. I am surprised by this !

Coaching = D, Maybe it was the short week and the kids just did not execute but the play calling IMO was suspect. I know we need to develop ALL those weapons for late in the year but at some point we need to get back into more basic play calling to settle them down, get a rhythm then throw a trick in there. Especially vs team like Hawaii at home.

[gobucksgo]

Offense F. Part of that is a short week, but that is something many of them need to be use to, because it happens at the next level. Often! I alsoay blame at the OC too. We miss Herman, more than I think we know. It's almost like we have all these shines toys but don't know how to play with them.

The one interesting spot is brax taking direct snaps after Cardale rolled out to the wideout spot. Would have been better if Brax had even just dropped back an faked a pass before taking off. Even I figured out that they were going to run brax whe he got the direct snap.

Special Teams D. Not hateful but two kick offs going out of bounds is unacceptable at any level. Returns was interesting to watch with Jailin and Braxton on returns. Would have like to has seen coverage of Brax had got a hold of one.

Defense b++. Silver bullets took care of business and ultimately schooled our Offense on how to score. To pitch the shutout AND hold them under 100 yards passing was an accomplishment. The line got good penetration and Lee and Rayquen will be forever linked to tOSU greatness. Bosa taking double teams helped free up others to pressure and make plays and he almost Penn Stated their QB several times. Glad they were firing on all cylinders Satursay.

Coaching C. Defensive scheming was good, finding the right match ups in coverage was good. Offensive coaches need to go back to smart coaching. Stop the gimic stuff. Feed Zek and let Cardale air it out. Our O line was sieve-like far too often. Wrong plays, weird shifts, on a team like Hawaii, line up and freaking pound the rock north/south.
Espically since there was no pre-season game planning for them.

The good news is, I imagine next week, Urban will have the offense humming and working on the small tweeks to make it better.

[mauricxe]

I have very little to add Wang. That's spot on.
I give the offense and coaching an F
I'm just upset at our playcalling.

I understand we want to 'practice' new stuff....but can we score 50pts in the 1st qtr first? Just run elliot up the gut man.

I get it...short week etc....but come on

[victor2111]

C- and the team can thank the defense for that grade. Offense was terrible. There is not much more to say. Only + is defense played great and no injuries. On to the next one...

[TH1Bucks]

Sept 14, 2015 10:37:10 GMT -5 victor2111 said:

C- and the team can thank the defense for that grade. Offense was terrible. There is not much more to say. Only + is defense played great and no injuries. On to the next one...

I feel sorry for NIU... Me thinks tOSU will be ready and not happy. I just hope this is not a up and down trend.

[Deleted]

A- and only because the O was off a bit - 38-0....how spoiled have we gotten to be upset with a 38-0 final....

[keln]

Well, like I did last week, "Nine Units Strong", so I'll grade that way (combining the DBs and adding STs as a unit). Using Meyer's philosophy, the lowest graded unit will be the overall grade:

Quarterbacks: C > The QB play was pretty mediocre. Nothing to write home about, but not too many big mistakes or anything (no turnovers). They weren't near what we expect to see, but I'll put part of that on the play-calling and part on the line. The OC seems to not know how to use Cardale Jones or JT properly. For the second week in a row. That's a problem.

Running Backs: B > Eliott got his hundred yards and three TDs and Dunn got a TD of his own, so it's hard to criticize that. They also did this with an offensive line that wasn't giving him much help. So it's a solid B in my book.

Tight Ends: C > The TEs were alright. I think they should have picked up some more blocks and helped that O-line out better, but they weren't exactly falling down either.

HB/W Receivers: C > I'll be honest, I didn't see much out of the receivers this game. When the offensive line is not giving a QB enough time to check down, it's up to the receivers to get open and get his attention fast. They didn't do that, and they also dropped some passes that they should have had. This is the first game in quite a while that Ohio State didn't get a touchdown reception.

Offensive Line: D- > By far the worst unit on the field this week. Last week they were lackluster, but at least they had the excuses of it being the first game and up against a very good defense with a talented defensive line. This week they regressed. Maybe the short week had something to do with it, and I can understand being a bit tired after holding back that Hokie defense, but this was against Hawai'i. I don't think the Offensive Line led in penalty yards this week (I couldn't find the stats on that), but they made up for it with some awful snaps from Jacoby Boren. This is like the meme "You Had ONE JOB!". I think he'll be snapping the ball a lot in practice this week. As he should. I really do hope this was a tired/beat-up issue.

Defensive Line: A+ > The D-Line was laying the boom on the Warriors all game. Hawai'is QB is supposed to be good, but between the defensive line being all up in his grill all game and the defensive backs making sure it was incredibly unsafe to throw the ball within the same county as them, there was no way to tell how good he was in this game. If the O-line was tired, the D-line definitely took their 5-hour energy mixed with jet fuel and plutonium. They never got tired the entire game. Not much more you can ask for from a defensive unit. Shutouts are very hard, and the defensive line was a major part of this one.

Linebackers: A > I'm only giving the Linebackers an A instead of an A+ because the D-Line did such a good job, we didn't even get to see them have to do much. They could have just sat out there and had tea while the D-Line continued to be a nightmare for the Warrior's offense and the DB's seemed to be in 11 places at once. But when they had to set the teacups and the crumpets down to make a play, they did it just fine. Had the defensive line struggled a bit with keeping the gaps closed, I am pretty sure the line backers would have made mincemeat of whoever got through. Short pass-coverage was good too preventing Hawai'i from nickle and dime-ing their way down the field. 12 first-downs the whole game should tell you all you need to know about the combination of the line and linebacker play.

Defensive Backs: A > A instead of A+ for the secondary, again because most of the defensive play-making was going on at the line. It's pretty hard to challenge the DBs when there isn't any time to actually pass the ball. But Hawai'i still managed to get 26 passes off...and only caught 8 of them. At 2.8 yards per pass, most of those completions were well under coverage. Vonn Bell obviously had a good day with another interception and Conley for the second game in a row was just all over the place with an interception of his own. There was no possible way for Hawai'i to get any kind of a passing game going with those two telling the Warriors to get off their lawn.

Special Teams: B > Solid coverage, no fumbles, decent punting (Johnston had a 57-yard and a 52-yard punt), 1/1 on FG's (can't say anymore about that than the 0/1 last week). I couldn't see anything obviously problematic. And I am ignoring the kicks out of bounds, since apparently that is on purpose. Or at least the reason they are happening is because they are purposely trying to kick to the corner every time. I'm not sure if I agree with that, but it's a coaching thing, not on the kicker so much. Definitely an improvement over last week.

Overall: D-

Again, the weakest unit determines the score. Just from overall play, I'd give the Bucks somewhere between a C and a B, due to excellent Defense. But if this game were played against a good team, especially someone like MSU, Ohio State would have lost. The defense would have been too gassed to keep it up with the offense not able to stay on the field. And against an MSU defense, the offense would have been even worse.

The offensive line should be the biggest focus right now as far as units needing serious improvement. But the first thing on Meyer's mind this week ought to be his Offensive Coordinator and the play-calling. This marks the second week in a row that Urban criticized his own OC's play calling. Last week it was not giving Elliot the ball enough. This week it was not trying enough passes. I don't think anybody expected Tom Herman to be replaced so easily, but this sounds to me like there is a rift forming between Warinner and Meyer.

And that could be a real problem later in the season.