Ohio State Football: Lessons learned from the Oklahoma game

Ohio State failed to win back to back games versus Oklahoma. Given how they played, what does that mean going forward?

A total team failure resulted in a 31-16 loss at home. The Ohio State Buckeyes continue to struggle in these types of games: prime time home games against top ranked opponents. It’s not just home openers, but visions of Virginia Tech from 2014, Michigan State from 2015, and Michigan of 2016 (not a prime time game, but still) occurred.

There was a lot to be critical of against the Oklahoma Sooners, so let’s just dive right in to what we learned from Saturday’s loss and what it means for the week ahead.

Thank God Army doesn’t pass the ball.

Army has attempted all of 10 passes all season. 10. So it’s a semi-safe bet that the Army Black Knights won’t light up what is statistically the single worst passing defense in the country.

More from Factory of Sadness

The ground based game of Army plays right into the hands of the Buckeyes’ defense. Right now, the only strength is the defensive line. But my goodness the secondary has been awful.

Say what you will about how lost Damon Arnette has looked, but it isn’t exactly like Damon Webb, Denzel Ward, Kendall Sheffield, or Jordan Fuller have accomplished much.

Since they cannot cover anyone in man to man, linebackers have had to bail to help underneath and both Fuller and Ward are stuck in no man’s land.

Here’s the worst part of it. Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield threw for 386 yards and three touchdowns. Great numbers overall, leading to a 87.5 QBR.

However, Mayfield averaged only 11 yards per pass. He wasn’t pressing the ball downfield and taking huge chunks of yards at a time to pad those numbers. Mayfield took advantage of the fact that his receivers could get enough separation to then gain ground after the catch.

All of the misdirection and actual play-calling left the Buckeye pass defense guessing all night long.

Kevin Wilson is not calling the offense.

You cannot convince me that Kevin Wilson is truly in charge of the offense right now. Look at how his Indiana teams have played in the past. Look at how the plays were called on the field on Saturday.

If you can honestly say the Wilson scheme is what we saw on Saturday, we’d love to hear from you. There were far too many quarterback runs and far too little involvement of the running backs.

We’ve covered on this site before how Wilson likes to use his running backs. Jordan Howard, Tevin Coleman, and Devine Redding carried the load on the ground during Wilson’s tenure in Bloomington, IN.