A painless second half is positive sign for Ohio State
BALTIMORE – Ohio State coach Urban Meyer knows this isn't a normal transitional year.
He said as much after Saturday's season-opener, which featured seven new starters on offense alone. "Every new player is going to have a certain amount of mistakes," Meyer said.
There's inexperience dotting his Ohio State roster – from the offensive line to the secondary – and he's without injured all-conference quarterback Braxton Miller. Yet the Buckeyes are still hoping to and expected to contend for a Big Ten title, and perhaps even the inaugural College Football Playoff.
Meyer knows there will be times his team doesn't look exactly the way he wants it to. And the entire first half of Ohio State's game against Navy on Saturday qualifies as one of those times.
But he also knows he'll see growth and development, like he saw in the Buckeyes' second half, which allowed them to pull away for a 34-17 win. And that's what ultimately matters most, one game into a long season.
Particularly impressive in the second half was redshirt freshman J.T. Barrett, who has been given the unenviable task of replacing Miller with little notice. In his collegiate debut on Saturday, Barrett was 12-for-15 for 226 yards, with two touchdowns and one interception. He also rushed nine times for 50 yards. Isolating just the second half, those stats become even flashier: 4-for-4 for 130 yards and both touchdowns (including an 80-yarder to receiver Devin Smith). "Better at the end than when it started," Barrett said.
"He can make plays," said Ohio State offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Tom Herman. "I don't know if he can take a broken play and turn it into 40 or 80 (yards) like Braxton can, but he can certainly make something out of nothing.
"There are a lot of things he does that allow us to stay on track, which is positive."
What helped Barrett – and with him, Ohio State – in that second half was improved offensive line play. That position group was arguably the Buckeyes' biggest question mark entering the season, mostly because it's unproven. The line was "disappointing" in the first half, Meyer said, and it even allowed a first-quarter sack despite Navy's undersized front seven.
"There's a standard set for the offensive line for many, many years," Meyer said. "It didn't resemble an offensive line at Ohio State the first two quarters. I'm being hard on them, but I think they played a lot better the second half. We'll evaluate the film and settle in on a starting five.
"We have to play much better if we're going to make a dent in the Big Ten."
Meyer harped on the offensive line because it limited offensive playcalling. He said the Buckeyes only called four or five plays the entire second half, and essentially won the game thanks to two – one of which involved play-action – because of a "lack of confidence in protection."
"We didn't resemble, once again, what we expect to be," Meyer said.
That was true in the red zone, too. In the first half, Ohio State did not score a touchdown on three trips. Last season's Buckeyes were No. 2 in the nation in red-zone scoring. Mistakes, such as bad penalties and Barrett's lone interception, cost the Buckeyes points early. Again, this was something they remedied in the second half with a more efficient, precise offensive attack.
Defensively, Meyer and Co. will see the same, some growing pains but ultimately some positives. Ohio State allowed Navy and its triple-option to accumulate 370 rushing yards – but it also held them to just 17 points.
"Navy's not a pushover team, and they run the triple-option to perfection," Buckeyes defensive tackle Michael Bennett said. "It was frustrating, but good to see guys fight through it."
It's also an offense the Buckeyes won't see again. So, even if concerns persisted about the run defense, they'll get (mostly) tossed out along with the triple-option game plan.
"The best thing about this game was that we won and it's in the rear-view mirror," Meyer said.
The second-best thing? The promise of that second half.
