Ohio State football: 5 reasons the Buckeyes will demolish Tulane

1. Dwayne Haskins and crew knows they still have room to improve in this game

Ohio State’s offense has looked much different this season as they’ve clearly improved in the passing game. The plethora of weapons mixed with the presence of Haskins has proved to be dangerous but there still seems to be some loose ends that need to be tied up. Mistakes in the offense led to points left off the board last weekend which made the game a bit more suspenseful than it should have been.

Though it was eluded to earlier, let’s cut to the chase in discussing the dropped passes. More specifically, Mack’s dropped passes caused things to shake up a bit in the progression of the Buckeyes’ offense. Mack had many ugly drops during the game including one in the end zone that ended up stunting the Buckeyes’ momentum early in the game instead of extending it.

Whether Haskins’ passes are too perfect or there’s something else going on, it was upsetting to see these errors occur. Yet, Haskins and the Buckeyes continued to look his direction as to get through Mack’s catching slump. Mack ended up making some nice plays as time went on throughout the game which was encouraging.

Mack is a great receiver who was under-utilized previously but is now looked for often to be a key component in the offense. These mistakes happen with relatively inexperienced receivers. He may have just not been used to the sheer volume he has been given as of late.

All of the receivers are getting plenty of attention in the passing game given Ohio State’s new style of looking down the field instead of only focusing on throwing to the H-backs over and over again. This was quite evident in the Barrett era especially when Curtis Samuel was around.

The offense is now built for the long haul instead of just for winning each game at the moment. The Buckeyes used to just slide by with an excellent run game but with only an above average passing game that only made things more difficult down the line. Situational football is great but it opens up to many risks because if there is no wealth of variety in the inventory then everything becomes very predictable.

That is why it’s great Ohio State is playing through these mishaps early. The Buckeyes suffered greatly the last time they were in the playoffs against the Clemson Tigers as they finally needed to start passing in that game after not doing it all year and receivers were dropping passes left and right.

Now, all of the receivers will have caught many passes before the big games begin so they will not even think twice about getting the job done at that moment. Expect the Buckeyes to continue to improve upon their execution against Tulane.