Why do college football coaches spend so much time and energy recruiting as much talent as possible? Because no matter how good of a coach you are, sometimes, when your team isn't at its best, you simply need them to be better than the opponent. You need talent to make winning plays more consistently than the other team.
Such was the case in No. 4 Ohio State's 21-17 win over Nebraska at the Horseshoe on Saturday. It was not a pretty performance from the Buckeyes; the 25-point favorites found themselves in a dogfight while trailing late into the fourth quarter. That's when they put together their most impressive drive of the day, going 75 yards in eight plays with Will Howard finding Quinshon Judkins for a 9-yard touchdown pass that proved to be the game-winner.
The win improved the Buckeyes to 6-1 on the season and kept them in the Big Ten title race, but while you should never apologize for winning, there were plenty of warning signs for the Buckeyes in the game that should be monitored moving forward.
Coming into the season, one of the biggest question marks about this Buckeyes team was its offensive line. For the most part, those questions were answered. The line had played well, but the best part of the unit this year has been the interior. There were bigger questions at tackle, which became even larger after starting left tackle Josh Simmons suffered a season-ending injury in the loss to Oregon.
His absence was evident against Nebraska.
On the day, Ohio State's offense finished with only 285 yards. While the 6.1 yards per play was impressive, it was also misleading. Howard hit Carnell Tate for a 40-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter and Jeremiah Smith for a 60-yard touchdown in the second. Two huge plays that Ohio State is capable of hitting because it has a talented quarterback and two very talented receivers.
Miscommunication in the Nebraska secondary didn't hurt, either.
Outside of those two plays, Ohio State had 185 yards on its other 45 plays. At no point was a thin offensive line able to open lanes for Ohio State's talented running backs as the Buckeyes averaged only 2.1 yards per carry in the game. Judkins was held to 29 yards on 10 carries, while TreVeyon Henderson managed 25 on 10 of his own. Nebraska finished with seven tackles for loss and two sacks of Howard.
Thankfully for the Buckeyes, while the offense struggled, all that talent on defense kept them in the game, holding Nebraska to only 4.1 yards per play on the day and harassing QB Dylan Raiola all day long. The defense finished with three sacks and 13 tackles for loss.
It was a winning formula, if an imperfect one. However, with a trip to Penn State looming next week, where a defense that ranks fourth nationally in pressure rate and ninth in negative play rate awaits, there isn't much time available to solve Ohio State's current offensive line situation.
This time, it may not be a problem talent alone can solve.