To prepare for Saturday’s game against Michigan State, Dwayne Haskins did what normally does: watch film. By Tuesday, he had already watched five game of the Spartans.
Ahead of this weekend’s game, he did something a little bit different, though. He got some help from Ohio State’s biggest rival: Michigan quarterback Shea Patterson.
Patterson’s Wolverines handled the Spartans, beating them 21-7 on Oct. 20. Patterson went 14-for-25 for 212 yards and two touchdowns, adding 24 yards on eight rushes.
Haskins and Patterson spoke for about 20 minutes around noon on Thursday. The Michigan signal-caller's advice was fairly simple.
Patterson isn’t the only high-profile quarterback with whom Haskins has a relationship. He also knows Oklahoma’s Kyler Murray, and he trades scriptures with Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa.
Eventually, Haskins will play against Patterson’s team, and there’s a chance he play against Murray or Tagovailoa, but he doesn’t root against the Michigan quarterback – as long as he’s not playing against him.
The unlikely alliance won’t be there in two weeks, though, when Ohio State prepares to take on Michigan.
“I'm not going to talk to him that week,” Haskins said.
Brendon White came out of nowhere on Saturday.
He did not play a defensive snap in the prior four weeks, and he had never played more than 25 snaps in a single game. But with Isaiah Pryor out with an injury and Jordan Fuller ejected due to a targeting penalty, he entered the game and thrived. In his 58 snaps, he tied for the team high with 13 tackles.
After being relegated to special team for the prior month, White seemed like he should have been the starter next to Fuller the whole season. So, it begged the question: why didn’t White play significant snaps before Saturday?
Grinch answered, “No. Stern no,” when asked whether White’s performance shows the coaching staff made a mistake not playing him sooner.
“What you have to do as a coach is you have to evaluate the things that are presented in front of you, and that comes from spring football through fall camp, and then you make a decision who your start is going into Week 1,” Grinch said. “And then, based on performances over the course of a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, which obviously isn't broadcasted on TV, you evaluate those things as well.
Grinch did not get into specifics, but he said players not making the most of opportunities can be anything from not blocking player on a punt or miscommunicating in practice.
Last Tuesday night, just four days before White’s breakout performance, Grinch said he sent the safety a text to let him know he had his best practice ever at Ohio State.
After Ohio State’s 36-31 win against Nebraska, Isaiah Prince and Mike Weber each said the offense didn’t run any run-pass options. Both Urban Meyer and running backs coach Tony Alford said that wasn’t completely true, but admitted the team relied heavily upon handoffs without any options.
After months of a declining run game, the Buckeyes averaged 5.7 yards per carry and gained 229 yards on the ground. J.K. Dobbins had 23 rushes for a season-high 163 yards for a 7.1 yard-per-carry average, his best of the season. Weber gained 91 yards on just nine carries, though he struggled to hold onto the ball.
Throughout the two weeks leading up the the game, Ohio State’s coaching staff stressed a return to a physical, dominating run game that had disappeared in recent weeks.
Some of the improvement on the ground can be chalked up to a better attitude and more focus on the craft, but it might not have been a coincidence that fewer run-pass options led to more yards per carry.
Prince and offensive line coach Greg Studrawa have both mentioned how difficult it can be for linemen to block without knowing whether it’s a run or a pass.Normal, classic handoffs allow linemen to tee off on defenders.
A lower amount of run-pass options might just be a one-week blip, though, Alford said. He said the determination of which runs to call comes down to “schematics.” In other words, the opponent, the opponent’s scheme and individual matchups factor into the types of run plays that the coaches use.