Sometimes fate forces your hand and you have to change things up, and that's exactly what Ohio State did on Saturday.
There was a marked difference in Ohio State's running game between last week against Maryland and this Saturday against Purdue, and that change was entirely due to a willingness to get positively capital-F Fancy with both playcalling and personnel choice.
Having spent four quarters almost literally pounding their heads into a wall of turtle-shaped bricks, this week Ryan Day and company adopted a different approach: not doing that. Instead of relying on Chip Trayanum to rush up the gut 20 times for about three yards a carry, they only had him do that six times . Instead of steadfastly running to the short side of the field, Ohio State sometimes ran plays to places where there weren't seven defenders waiting to tackle them.
And, of course, they made the correct decision and gave Dallan Hayden most of the carries and let him pop off for 76 yards and 6.9 yards per carry. That, plus some funkiness with Devin Brown in goal line situations, warmed the cockles of my cold dead heart becauseis the essence of college football: a willingness to change and evolve, even during the course of what's ostensibly a great season, knowing that things can get better.
Was a lot of it thrown in to make Penn State gameplan for a bunch of weird crap next week? I hope not! But even if it was, for this week at least, it was fun as hell to watch. I don't care how bad Purdue might be... Getting a stop there like that is impressive!! Way to show up, D!!! Big time!!!!!!Every runner for OSU with more than 3 carries averaged 4+ yds a carry. Even Devin Brown from the QB position. The run game took a step forward today.I know Halloween coming up in a couple of weeks. Dont be that house thats giving away Almond Joy to these kids. Dont even buy the big bag that has them in there.
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