Ryan Day Reveals How Ohio State Could Handle Inclement Weather In Future
Ohio State was held to a season-low 283 yards of total offense in Saturday’s 21-7 win at Northwestern, something head coach Ryan Day once again attributed to the inclement weather in Evanston.
“I think last week was just one of the more unique things I’ve ever been around,” Day said during his press conference on Tuesday afternoon. “I think someone said at one point there were 80-mile-per-hour wind gusts in the area. It was just very strange.
“If we play in a game like that again, I think we would probably try to run the quarterback a little bit more a little bit earlier, but that comes with risks, as well. I think there’s bad weather and there’s extreme weather, and I thought that was pretty extreme.”
The Buckeyes weren’t able to get anything going offensively until the three-minute mark of the second quarter, when quarterback C.J. Stroud kept the ball instead of handing it off to running back Miyan Williams on 4th-and-1 and scrambled 16 yards for a first down.
That set up Ohio State’s first touchdown of the day and was followed by a 44-yard run by Stroud late in the fourth quarter that led to the final score of the game. He finished with a career-high 79 yards on the ground on an afternoon where he completed just 10-of-26 passes for a career-low 76 yards.
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Stroud actually entered the game with minus-4 yards rushing on the season, but his involvement in the run game was necessitated by Northwestern stacking the box to take away Williams and the one-dimensional offense, which only threw the ball when the wind was at its back.
Day said after the game the Buckeyes were hoping to keep Stroud’s running abilities in their back pocket, but he was asked on Tuesday if it can give the offense another dimension – or at least giving opposing defenses something to think about in the future.
“I think C.J. embraced it and you can see what he can do,” Day said. “I think it can be a weapon for us moving forward, so maybe we found a little something there.”
That said, Ohio State has just three more games with the potential for inclement weather, including home against Indiana this weekend, at Maryland on Nov. 19 and home against Michigan on Nov. 26, and we all know how much it snowed the last time those two teams met.
But if the Buckeyes make it to Indianapolis for the Big Ten Championship Game, the College Football Playoff semifinals at the Fiesta or Peach bowls or the national championship in Los Angeles, they’ll be playing in a retractable (or fixed-roof stadium that all negate the weather.
That’s why the offense appears to be more versatile this year, lining up under center or in heavy personnel in certain situations or more wide open in others.
“We’ve tried to make some adaptations to make sure that we’re ready for those types of environments, but then you turn around and then you’re in Indy and it’s wide open and it’s 72 degrees on a fast track,” Day said. “You have to have both of those things in order to get to where you want in terms of reaching your goals.”
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