Ohio State loss rests on the offense — and coaches who couldn't get Buckeyes over the hump
- - Ohio State loss rests on the offense — and coaches who couldn't get Buckeyes over the hump
Rob Oller, Columbus Dispatch January 1, 2026 at 7:33 PM
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Ohio State loss rests on the offense — and coaches who couldn't get Buckeyes over the hump
ARLINGTON, Texas – Ohio State is not who we thought it was.
We were fooled by the flash and sizzle, by the Cirque du Soleil acrobatics of wide receiver Jeremiah Smith and uncanny precision of Julian Sayin. Carnell Tate could not be covered. Bo Jackson was an emerging beast.
We failed to read the footnotes until after Miami’s 24-14 upset win in the Dec. 31 College Football Playoff quarterfinal at AT&T Stadium. The Buckeyes’ offensive line lacked an NFL early-round draft pick. Sayin seldom scrambled for first downs. The additions via the transfer portal were a mixed bag. Max Klare good, C.J. Donaldson decent, Beau Atkinson meh and Ethan Onianwa … oops. Kicker Jayden Fielding was not as reliable as needed. The play-calling — oh, my, the play-calling — lacked creativity and common sense. Again, why weren’t Smith and Tate on the field together at the end against Indiana?
Many missed what turned out to be the most important piece of fine print: Ohio State’s offense entered the witness protection program against the three best teams it faced. Disappeared. Poof. Fourteen points against Texas, ranked No. 1 at the time. Ten points against No. 2 Indiana. Fourteen points against No. 10-seed Miami.
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Make no mistake, none of those three defenses was a pushover. Indiana’s ranks fourth; Miami’s 10th; Texas comes in at 37th, not exceptional but still better than the shower liners that are Rutgers (125th), Purdue (119th) and UCLA (83rd) — teams OSU played in consecutive weeks before finishing the regular season against Michigan (22nd).
When playing defenses that punched back, the Buckeyes’ offense got exposed. Ohio State scored three touchdowns in its final two games. The O-line allowed five sacks against Miami and five against Indiana after allowing only six all season. That doesn’t cut it no matter how you slice it.
Not who we thought they were.
Where it gets tricky is the chicken or egg question of whether the offense was out-talented by Indiana and Miami or outcoached? Let’s take the easy yet accurate way out and say both were true. The offensive line, which shined at times this season (see Michigan), regressed into cloud cover against the Hurricanes and Hoosiers. That tends to happen when you feast on Bruins, Boilermakers, Badgers and Scarlet Knights — all with losing records — in the back half of the season.
But wait, it’s not like Miami played the NFC West down the stretch. South Beach did not throw a party after the U drubbed Syracuse (3-9) and Virginia Tech (3-9) in November.
There has to be more at play than the comparative strength of schedule between the Buckeyes (12-2) and Hurricanes (12-2). Certainly, losing offensive coordinator/play-caller Brian Hartline to the South Florida Bulls the week of the Indiana game did not help Ohio State’s offensive cohesion. More damaging is that his departure meant Ryan Day took over the play-calling, which he had not done since 2023.
Play calling is 75% art, 25% science. It requires a feel for the game that is part innate, part developed. It’s impossible to know if Day has the “gift” of play-calling, but even if he does it’s no stretch to think he is out of practice. It looked that way against Miami.
“I take responsibility for not getting the guys ready,” Day said. “We spent an inordinate amount of time putting a plan together to get everybody ready to play in the first half, and we didn't win the first half. We have to figure out why that was.”
The first half was a train wreck. Miami tore through the OSU offensive line like a chainsaw through Styrofoam. For 25 minutes the Cotton Bowl had the same feel as the 2007 BCS championship game between Ohio State and Florida, when the Buckeyes showed up as kings of the hill and left as court jesters. You knew within the first series or two that OSU had no answer for the pass rush, and initially it appeared the Hurricanes would toss Sayin around like a rag doll when they wanted.
Finally, the Buckeyes went more uptempo, which worked. They cut a 14-0 deficit to 14-7 early in the third quarter, then seemed primed to complete the comeback when Sayin found Smith slashing across the middle for a pretty 14-yard touchdown that cut the deficit to 17-14, but a crushing holding call followed by a penalty that wiped out a 53-yard punt were two too many mistakes to overcome.
And then Miami marched 70 yards on an OSU defense that had not allowed more than 16 points in a game all season and broke the Buckeyes’ back by scoring with 55 seconds left to clinch it.
But don’t blame this loss on the defense, which surrendered only 17 points, the other seven coming on a 72-yard pick-six by Miami defensive back Keionte Scott in the second quarter.
The blame rests on the offense. And the offensive coaches who could not find a way to get Ohio State over the hump.
Sports columnist Rob Oller can be reached at [email protected] and on X.com at @rollerCD.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ohio State offense, play-calling doom Buckeyes in Cotton Bowl loss
Source: “AOL Sports”
