Ohio State’s rebuilt offensive line puts them right back in the lead for the national title

I certainly didn’t expect to type that headline anytime this season.

Ohio State’s starting left tackle and best offensive lineman Josh Simmons is out for the year.

His replacement, Zen Michalski, struggled mightily against Nebraska and was injured in the game and will be out for at least a few more games.

Against Penn State, starting left guard Donovan Jackson moved outside and started at tackle for the first time in his career.

In his stead at guard was Carson Hinzman, who started 12 games at center last year, but was benched for the bowl game and has only played 71 snaps as a backup this year.

Penn State boasts one of the best defensive lines in the country, anchored by future first-round draft pick Abdul Carter.

All of those factors made it a widely accepted foregone conclusion that Ohio State’s offensive line was going to struggle in the top-five matchup in State College last Saturday. After all, the team was only able to muster 64 rushing yards against the Huskers last week and the Nittany Lions are eighth in the country, allowing only 93 yards on the ground per game.

There was no way that this bruised, battered, and undermanned Ohio State offensive line was going to be able to stand up to PSU’s challenge. I was so concerned about it that — even though I picked Ohio State to win — I wrote about how I felt that if OSU lost, it would be because of the o-line.

Friends, not only was I wrong… I was stupendously wrong, and happily so. Granted, pretty much everyone who doesn’t have key-card access to the Woody Hayes Athletic Center was also wrong, but that’s beside the point.

The point is that somehow, through a little bit of luck, a little bit of determination, and a little bit of self-examination, the Buckeyes appear to have found an offensive line unit — including its coaches — that has the ability to compete at a level worthy of a national title.

But the changes that we have seen from the Nebraska game (and even, if we’re being honest, the Oregon game) to Penn State were not just about Jackson sliding over and Hinzman returning to the lineup, they were also about how Chip Kelly called plays.

For decades, Ohio State has seemingly preferred to win with talent than scheme, and while there have been exceptions over the years, the Buckeyes typically do not go out of their way to draw up especially complex offensive or defensive play designs, because, generally, they don’t need to. The philosophy is essentially, “We’re better than you, and we’re going to line up and prove it.”

And despite bringing in coordinators who are considered something of mad geniuses on their sides of the ball, Ohio State continued to employ a predominantly straight-forward gameplan into this season. However, following the one-point loss to Oregon on the road, and the frustratingly lackluster performance against the Cornhuskers, it seems that Ryan Day and his staff have finally begun to take a different approach.

At their press conference this week, Day and defensive coordinator Jim Knowles discussed “re-engineering” the defense to include more creative looks to put the players in the best position to be successful. The same thing has clearly happened on offense in response to the line being beaten up and undermanned.

While I am still unsure why the coaches left Jackson on his own to block Carter by himself on multiple key third downs, beyond that — and especially on running plays — Kelly, presumably with the help of offensive line coach Justin Frye, upped his play-calling game to levels that we only saw in spurts and stops early in the season.

When you combine that with a group of players who had clearly grown tired of hearing all of the critiques of their play, you get a performance like the one on the final drive against Penn State that sealed the top-five victory. The drive began on the Buckeyes’ one-yard line and consumed the final 5:13 of the game.

Ohio State moved the ball 58 yards on 11 consecutive runs to drain the clock and the will of the Penn State defense. On the drive, OSU quarterback Will Howard converted two third downs via designed runs, both of which were called to the left — the side of the line consisting of a guard who had been only average this season now playing tackle and a center who lost his starting position now playing guard.

It was a thrilling drive, it was an awe-inspiring drive, it was a sanity-saving drive. It was a drive that makes you believe that faith, hope, and blind allegiance to a football program through all sorts of ups and downs is not only worth it, but that that level of perseverance is also good for your internal soul.

And, yes, I know that it was just one game — and that it was a game against a team coached by James Franklin — but this OSU coaching staff’s collective back is against the wall, what choice do they have but to pull out all the stops? I know that Day’s words and the team’s actions haven’t always lined up in the past — especially when it comes to major changes in high-pressure situations — but it feels like the talk and the walk are finally coming together.

While this might just be me gearing up to take another run at the football only to have Lucy snatch it away from me, I truly believe that Ohio State is the best team in college football and that by allowing the coaching staff to use their considerable schematic expertise to make the most of the talent advantages on this Buckeye roster, no one in the sport can beat them.

Will that happen? I hope so. The offensive line has been the program’s biggest weakness for at least the last two seasons, and with Jackson and Hinzman taking over on the left side and Kelly creatively calling plays to compensate for a general lack of experience and cohesion, it feels like that unit is now shockingly on the path to becoming a positive for this team.