COLUMBUS, Ohio — Will Howard got off to another hot start in the first half of Ohio State’s game against Nebraska. Too bad it wasn’t always sustainable.
Howard was nine of nine for 167 and two touchdowns where it seemed Chip Kelly and Ryan Day were open to testing his limits as a passer with multiple connections downfield. The transfer quarterback has hinted for weeks that he’d been working on his ability to throw the deep ball even if we hadn’t seen it yet. Saturday provided a chance to see how he’s progressed.
His first was a 40-yard completion to Carnell Tate that suggest that skillset was still a work in progress as he drastically underthrew the open receiver. The positive from it is that Tate made it not matter by making a play on the ball.
The second was a perfect throw to Jeremiah Smith for a 60-yard touchdown that helped Smith tie Cris Carter’s record for the most receiving yards by a true freshman at OSU. Howard pushed the ball out there and allowed Smith to run under it in stride and head into the endzone untouched.
Howard showed progression on Saturday, the only problem is that those plays came at a premium thanks to a w problem the Buckeyes are dealing with.
Josh Simmons is out for the season with a knee injury and Zen Michalski has replaced him as the starting left tackle. It’s his first career start four years in and only the second game he’s ever played meaning snaps. And it showed.
Michalski got beat multiple times in one-on-one situations where he seemed outmatched by the opponent which constantly put Howard under duress. It forced Ohio State to overcompensate by having Donovan Jackson help in double teams which put other offensive linemen in harm’s way. Especially when OSU decided that even though it’s seven games in, it still finds it necessary to rotate Tegra Tshabola and Austin Siereveld at right guard which made that spot susceptible to giving up pressure.
The Buckeyes had been progressing on the offensive line through the first six games. It had gone from this team’s biggest question mark to a potential strength for an offense that was among the nation’s best.
Now they find themselves back at Square 1. Trying to figure out who their best five are while the rest of the offense tries to overcome a glaring weakness. They had two weeks to figure that out and clearly that wasn’t enough time.
Michalski settled in as the game continued which is a good sign for the coming weeks and Siereveld has had better days. But Ohio State is running out of time to figure things out and its schedule offers them no favors.
It’ll be heading into potentially another top-four matchup on the road next week when it heads to Penn State hoping for a different result than what happened in Eugene, Oregon, before the second off week. Indiana has proven that it might be a College Football Playoff caliber. Even if Michigan’s clearly having a down year, it still has a defensive line with some quality names. Then there’s the Ducks who will probably be waiting for OSU in Indianapolis if it gets through the next month.
The Buckeyes have a new problem thanks to an untimely injury to someone who was probably their most valuable player. It’s a problem they thought they’d spent nine months solving. Now they have to figure out how to do it again and time isn’t on their side in doing so.