Buckeye Football: Is The Ohio State Offensive Line A Concern?

welcome to Buckey tomorrow morning for Monday September 2nd I'm your host Tom Moore the Western Michigan game in five days the game against Michigan in 89 days game number one in the books for the Ohio State Buckey they are one and0 you watched some of the other teams around the country play during week one you might have felt a little squirly about that first half for the Buckeyes and then you watch Michigan UP 16 to10 on Fresno State in the fourth quarter and Oregon struggling to put away Idaho might be a little more might might be time to sort of put things in perspective it was week one it's week one for everyone don't read too much into it we're going to read a little bit into it today we're going to be hearing from the Ohio State Buckey on a bunch of different topics from week one you're also going to be hearing from akan head coach Joe Morehead who had some interesting stuff to say you're also going to be hearing from Syracuse coach Fran Brown why well we'll get there at the end another interesting soundbite that uh he came up after the the oranges game against the Ohio Bobcats we'll get there in a little bit but let's start with Ohio State head coach Ryan day he was asked a question that started about as a question about will Howard's day and what was good and what was bad but but it turned into an answer about a bunch of different guys playing in the stadium for the first time so here's Ryan day starting his answer on will Howard and then sort of going from there I I'm GNA watch the film and kind of make that determination um I I thought he had pretty good Poise the whole day he took care of the football other than the one crazy decision there at at the end of the half there to try to force something actually he's got to take a deep breath on that but um you know for your first start in the shoe now he is a more experienced guy but he's in a new offense in new environment um I'll say this overall I felt like early on you know the three inside guys you know they hadn't played and they you know Seth and Austin first start Tegra Jeremiah will um you know Quinn Sean's first time playing here and I think just across the board there was just you know they were a little uptight early on I think you know they were kind of worked up and you just saw a couple things off and uh we got ourselves off schedule I thought chip did a nice job of continually pushing the run you could see that start to take its effect in the second half and then I thought we we sort of settled in and started to have more fun and and kind of you know we started to play with a little little looser uh which is the way we need to play and um I thought we were a little bit uptight early on and you know we can't play like that we got to uh come out of the gates you know playing loose but um but I get it and so we're going to get on the film and grow from there but for for a lot of these guys to start and their first start so and then also um good to see some some younger guys towards the end get in there and play and and those guys are in there like to play and it's not just to eat up reps and it's not just to build Dept for the future it's also because there are metrics in play here for the playoffs that we have to make sure that we're um you know a part of in terms of offense and defense and so um those guys have been told that and I thought they did go in there and compete towards the end probably the single biggest story of game number one for the Buckeyes was true freshman wide receiver Jeremiah Smith six catches 92 yards a pair of touchdowns very impressive debut sort of the debut that everyone was sort of hoping to see wasn't sure well it happened now you've seen it in person the legend is apparently true so he was also he played through a couple early mistakes as well he had first first pass thrown to him hit him hit him in the hands dropped it didn't catch it took penalty Buckey ended up punting on that first drive played through it though ended up with a very impressive debut you can see the talent and like you said we're going to play right through just about all of it um you know I think he's another guy I mean you know sometimes you look at him you don't even think he's quite human but he is and um you know he's goingon to make a few early mistakes but not very many um you can see the talent there and he's going to sleep good tonight though I can tell you that and I think they all need to get some rest tonight it was a long week it was a hot week we practiced really hard we practiced Monday Tuesday and Wednesday in pads physical for a reason and uh and it was hot out there today but that's good it was hard and um they'll sleep good tonight and we'll get back at it tomorrow the physical Talent is one thing with Jeremiah Smith but the ability to play through those two early mistakes that's the kind of thing that might have shaken the confidence of a lot of true freshmen who are out there for the first game how was he able to put those two mistakes behind him so quickly he's he's built different he is um just the way his approach is so you can see his size and speed and all that but typically somebody with that type of talent doesn't have the discipline the focus that he does um you know and so uh you know nobody even batted an eye I mean nobody said a word like it was like he's just GNA play through this and we're going to be fine it wasn't even consideration because we see what he does every day in practice and we knew he was going to settle in the Buckeye Run game was a little disjointed in the first half felt like they would sort of get something going and then someone would miss a block and just wouldn't be able to get things going consistently like they wanted to so did the patchwork offensive line with Donovan Jackson sitting out and taker shabo making his first career start and Seth McLaughlin making his first start as a buckeye did that play any sort of a part in that sort of disjointed Run game in the first half yeah uh when I looked at the numbers at halftime I thought it was going to be a lot worse than it was I think I think Trey was averaging six yards a carry and Quin Shan was just under four and then it looked much better in the second half um I I just think there was some things off in there uh on the your guys you know just weren't quite fitting it up right we weren't that far off I thought schematically we had some good ideas and what we were doing um and and there was a couple runs that maybe we could have hit better uh at running back but I just think that we were just not great in the fits early on and I think you know you have to ask those guys they seemed like they were pressing a little bit early on again but but then I thought they really settled in a little bit you know I thought chip called a good game I really do I think that you know he he knew he knows what he wants to get done with this team he wants to establish this run and that means you know maybe that's not scoring you know 70 or whatever you know but we need to establish the run late in the season so we're going to do that um and you know the quarterback's going to be a part of it and um so I don't know how to grade it I got to watch the film and see well the good thing is I actually get to watch some of the film during the game now so I can't just always say I'm gonna wait till tomorrow to make a decision so I did see some of it and it wasn't all great it wasn't all bad either though last year's Ohio State Defense was very effective among the nation's best in just about every category but not in turnovers they really just didn't create a lot of turnovers last year for whatever reason and that was a point of emphasis for the Buckeyes throughout fall Camp Saturday they not only got two turn turnovers they got two turnovers for touchdowns that's a pretty big step forward for Ryan day's team and Jim n's defense yeah it was great uh I thought you know the Joe had a pretty good plan of getting the ball out of the quarterback's hand quickly and that can eliminate the um you know can eliminate the pass rush quickly and tire the front but uh I thought our guys did a good job of getting their their hands on some stuff and make that adjustment but then I know we tightened up some coverage a little bit made him you know hold on to it a few times and and so then you know we were able to hit get home with it I thought the effort play by Kaden Curry was was tremendous to come back around because that wasn't you know as I remember it it wasn't like you know you know a sack you know in the first second or two of the play I mean it was a scramble step up he was kind of towards the line of scrimmage and then he retraced back with a great effort play and knock the ball out and that's something we talk a lot about when you're talking about turnovers we did a quick study about college and the NFL and one of the big percentage of turnovers is strip sacks on the quarterback uh whether he's in the pocket or coming out of the pocket and that was a great one and then the other study that we did is just you know on fumbles uh and you know how we want to you know handle those you know if we're in tight areas we want to get on them if we get them open areas we're scooping and scoring and there's an art to that and we practice that every Tuesday but then I also thought there was some really good block setup on that play as well I thought the tip ball you know Gabe made a really nice play on the ball uh that was just kind of a more athletic play but uh ball disruption is something we spent some time on this offseason and ball security you know if we're going to win you know these these games we got to make sure that we're winning the the U ball security and turnover um you know part of the game but yeah anytime you get a defensive score uh that's huge and you know you could see we were close to in a couple of returns you know I mean we're working at it and we were just a one or two two away I don't know what what Brandon's uh return yardage was but uh you can see there's some potential back there we got a bunch of guys buying into that and and we were getting there I mean it was better today than I remember in the past and so uh we'll keep working on that because if we can get some special team scores defensive scores that can be a huge part of our season now on to Jeremiah Smith G I'll let you hear from him a little bit Chris Carter after that drop Chris Carter of course former legendary Ohio State wide receiver NFL Hall of Famer tweeted basically don't worry man I dropped my first pass at Ohio State too so what was Jeremiah Smith's reaction to that first drive with the drop and the penalty my reaction to dropping the ball was I don't know I can't really explain that one but when I came to the S I was just mad at myself but I mean it's football mean you play receiver you go drop the ball so but you can't drop it that much so I I just moved on just made a play to that's draw so Jeremiah Smith has obviously been getting a lot of hype basically since the day he stepped on campus to the point that Ohio State players and coaches were more or less openly saying they didn't want to talk him up too much because they didn't want to make it too crazy around him they didn't want the hype to get two out of hand was he kind of feeling the pressure early today to do something spectacular pressure no I don't really feel pressure um I I just want to go out there and play football and win and play play football and win games so I mean I know all the hype around me was crazy coming in and I just wanted to come in and be a guy just work and just not be about all Hye so I mean just want to impress my coaches impress my peers around me and my teammates so that's all now on to Ohio State starting quarterback will Howard he had a solid not necessarily spectacular but a solid effective efficient day the kind of boring day that Ohio State coaches are probably going to be perfectly happy with this year out of will Howard but the first half well the first half was a little raggedy at times so what was the conversation in the locker room like at the half as they were trying to figure out how to get things on track one of our goals in this game was to play clean and I feel like we didn't really do that in the first half um you know but at the end of the day we just kind of had to get together and say just settle down you know just just play our game you know don't think about it too much don't you know let the fact that you know it's our maybe our first time playing the shoe like just got to settle in you know and play football and I think we did a good job of that in the second half but you know we definitely need to work on you know starting a little faster um starting a little better and and not having those those mistakes that we had in the first half you know me personally uh you know included in that and I mean we we built off it and you know we we came out in the second half and guns of Blazing and did really well um and obviously a win is a win and when you win by as much as we did like you know it's it's good and you know I'm happy that we won um but there's still a lot of stuff to clean up will Howard will go down in history as the the answer to the trivia question who threw Jeremiah Smith's first touchdown pass and it was a nice play by Smith he made a nice adjustment up in the air to go get it and so here was Will Howard's view of that pass if if he's pressed and it's one-on-one put it up and he'll make he'll make the play um and that's exactly what he did I just saw he was pressed you know so I tried to put it up over top and he actually made a little adjustment and came back to it and I mean that's all I got to do is just you know give him a chance and and he's gonna do the rest you guys saw that today and finally will Howard he's not new to being a starting college quarterback he's done that a bunch at Kansas State but he is new to being the starting quarterback at Ohio state so what was that like that first day in the Horseshoes is you happy to sort of have that in the rearview mirror and now have a little bit more to go on when he's to prepare him for these games it's cool man it's a it's a pretty pretty freaking cool stadium and and the fans and the band and just the tra like I've never been a part of so many different traditions and I had to learn like all these New Traditions that we had and it's like it's cool man it's fun it's like it makes it more engaging you know for everyone involved and like the skull session and just getting to experience all this stuff that I've heard about for the first time was really fun and and now that I got it all under my belt it's like all right you know now I've done it and now it's you know it's business as usual from now on but um it's still cool and it's still fun to appreciate it you know when you know I only have 12 opportunities as a buckeye you know guaranteed and you know obviously hopefully we get 16 or 17 but um you know I only have so many opportunities as a buckeye so I got to got to soak it all in and enjoy it while while I'm here man and it's quite quite an environment quite an atmosphere and I'm just glad to be a part of it now going to give you a couple quick clips from akan head coach Joe Morehead he was asked his thoughts on the Buckeyes and it turned into his thoughts on the Buckeyes as a national championship Contender um I learned that Ohio state is an incredibly talented team uh that is very well coached um and we'll have an opportunity in my opinion having coach against the 2019 LSU team and it took my son to see uh Michigan last spring for a recruiting visit so I I know what a team that can play for the national championship looks like and uh you know this looks like a team that can play for National Championship I got a chance to ask Joe Morehead about what he knew about Jeremiah Smith before the game and what he knows now about Jeremiah Smith and the Ohio State wide receiver room we follow show on Twitter which is cool so I I uh I think it might have been I don't know where I would have been certainly when I wasn't here but um he's as advertised and we recruited a Mecca when I was at Oregon and then the take kid so uh it's just an embarrassment of riches you know every everywhere you look there there's a guy that can catch it and break a tackle and score or a guy that can run by it and and a guy who can throw them the ball and a line that can protect so uh just to see that kid play in person after all the uh kind of poping circumstance leading up to it he he he he lived up to the to the building finally I mentioned this off the top of the show and this is one of the things that turned into a whole thing on Twitter because while the Buckeyes were sort of struggling a little bit on offense in the first half Kyle McCord was the quarterback of Syracuse he had a pretty nice day they they started off a little slow but he finished with 20 27 for 39 354 yards four touchdowns one pick and a win over the Ohio Bobcats they did start slow fell behind six nothing bran Brown seemed pretty happy with kic cor's day on the whole had a pretty good line at the end of this about Ryan day so that's why I included this one in this show as well I think that we needed that we've never dealt with adversity you know we got to be down 6 nothing there was a lot of things that we were able to deal with throughout the game that helped us and showed that you know we'll continue to play we'll continue to count on each other and do things of that nature so I mean not getting down I mean Kyle's a good good football player you seen it right there I should sent uh sent Ryan Day a bottle of champagne for allowing us to getting it's pretty cool all right that may be the last time you hear from Fran Brown on this show this season it will definitely not be the last time you hear from Ryan day or will Howard or Jeremiah Smith we're be back with plenty more shows this week we have plenty of interviews insight and Analysis all that kind of good stuff and a great place to find all of that and even more detail if you like this show you would love Buckey huddle.com that's where Tony Kevin and I cover the team Mark covers recruiting get our whole team of ex's noos gurus there to make you a smarter football fan all at Bucky huddle.com we hope to see you there that'll do it for today thank you guys all for joining us have a great day we'll talk to you tomorrow