Ohio State vs. Youngstown St. - Third Quarter Analysis

3rd Quarter

15:00 / - / - / Kickoff / -
Pettrey boots it to the 3. Rolle gets a hand on the returner, but to no avail. Lukens (+0.5) and Oliver (+0.5) bring them down.

14:54 / 1st & 10 / YSU 26 / Base 4-3 / 3 yd
PA boot, dumps it to TE in the flat. Tough to defend. Laurinaitis (+0.5), Freeman (+0.5), and Heyward (+0.5) make the play in the flat. Freeman looks like he got messed up at the bottom of the pile.

14:06 / 2nd & 7 / YSU 29 / Base Nickel / 9 yd
Interesting DL configuration with both the DTs sitting right in the A gaps, and the DE are both out wide over the D gap. YSU is in 5 wides, gets the playcall in the look-look. YSU runs a WR screen to the wide side. Homan (-0.5) gets blocked at the point of attack and can’t get a push upfield. Chekwa can’t stop the play, and Laurinaitis comes over late to stop the ball carrier.

13:40 / 1st & 10 / YSU 38 / 4-3 Under / 0 yd
YSU, lining up in the shotgun with a HB, a wing, a SE to the short side, and 2xWR to the wide side, motions the slot receiver to the other side of the QB. A quick draw is blown up by Freeman (+1) who runs down the play from behind. Big Ten speed.

13:02 / 2nd & 10 / YSU 38 / 3-3-5 / -5 yd
We’ve got the 3-3-5 again with Gibson in at the Leo. YSU lines up in the shotgun with 3 WR. They motion over the FL to the short side, and hand the ball off to him. Wilson (+2) does a fantastic job of reading the play and stays home. Larimore (-0.5) follows the ball and gets out of position. Not too bad, since it’s not the DT’s job to keep contain on the weak side. The ball carrier pitches it off for a reverse. Wilson doesn’t make the tackle, but he made the play. Freeman (+0.5) and Heyward (+0.5) clean it up. I’m going to take some time to go off. The BTN announcers (-8) called this play a double reverse. This is not a double reverse. There’s a difference between an end around and a reverse. The ball must be moving one direction before the exchange for it to constitute a “reverse.” So, the YSU offense only reversed the field once in this play.

12:11 / 3rd & 15 / YSU 33 / Base Nickel / -18 yd
Heacock dials up the ol zone blitz here, with Gibson at the DE spot (in a three-point stance.. no 3-3-5 this time). Freeman and Laurinaitis overload the right side of the OL. Wilson (+2) makes the YSU LG look ridiculous by just firing off into the gap, and getting into the backfield completely untouched. Rowan takes the simpleton’s approach to getting sacked by running backward 10 more yards. He almost got away, but there’s no way Wilson was going to let go of Rowan’s foot. A scary speed rush right there. That shows you how powerful Wilson’s first step can be with his long 6’7” frame. If an O-lineman is slow (looking at you Michigan), or hesitant and fails to get his feet in the right place to initiate contact in pass protection, there’s nothing left to do but pray there’s a RB back there to pick it up or that Wilson somehow fails to convert on the play.

11:31 / 4th & 33 / YSU 15 / Punt return
The YSU punt checks up at the OSU 44 and bounces out of bounds.

11:23 / 1st & 10 / OSU 44 / Pistol Left / 5 yd
So it took until the 2nd half to show the vaunted Pistol formation: the QB lines up in a short shotgun, with the TB 8 yards deep, and the FB lines up alongside the QB. The play is a HB screen of sorts. Wells (+1) releases into the flat, escorted by Browning (+0.5) clears out his man, while Person (-1) does everything he can to prevent Beanie from springing the play. I’m not sure whether he was supposed to release with Browning; if not, there’s just no way he could be in position to seal that LB. Either way, Beanie gets a nice gainer out of it.

10:48 / 2nd & 5 / OSU 49 / Shotgun 3 WR / 16 yd
The play is a HB trap to Wells (+2). Person (+1) perfectly executes the pull, opening up the whole. Ballard (+1) and Boone (+1) do a good job of blocking their men away from the play. Sanzenbacher (+1) cracks down hard and opens up 2/3 of the field for Beanie to break it outside. Small (+1) has his man locked up on the outside to give Beanie room to work. The safety makes the play well past the yellow stripe.

10:18 / 1st & 10 / YSU 35 / Ace 3 WR Twins Right / 2 yd
Boeckman (-2) drops, pumps right, and pulls it down for a short gain. Can’t really see what was going on up top (to the twins’ side), so we’ll neither presume it was a good or bad read. However, we’ve got to dock him points for putting the ball on the ground.

9:39 / 2nd & 8 / YSU 33 / Ace Wing 3 WR / 4 yd
Boeckman (+1) runs the PA fake and bootlegs out to the wide side where Sanzenbacher is running a sort of slant and drag route. The pass is completed, and Sanzenbacher gets absolutely drilled. Props for making the catch in the first place, not fumbling it, and popping right back up, albeit a bit cross-eyed. Props to Boeckman for delivering a strike on the run without squaring his shoulders or setting his feet. I know I’ve taken shots at his poor technique on other plays, but there are two differences: this time the boot was designed, and he actually made the play.

9:04 / 3rd & 4 / YSU 29 / Shotgun Split RB / -5 yd
False start on Small (-1). It looks pretty dumb on Small’s part, but you could see Boeckman do the leg lift twice, and with some urgency the 2nd time. Is this actually Cordle’s fault for not knowing the snap count or not being ready to snap the ball when called. Maybe a WR coach/ex-player or something could explain whether you read the QB’s foot, or the snap itself.

8:53 / 3rd & 9 / YSU 34 / Shotgun Split RB / 18 yd
Small (+1) redeems himself by running some sort of comeback route. Hard to see with the BTN’s narrow camera angles. Boeckman (+1) delivers a strike to convert 3rd & long.

8:28 / 1st & 10 / YSU 16 / Shot-Ginn Right / 8 yd
Transparent playcalling, but it worked. Boeckman (+0.5) tosses a quick screen to Small (+0.5) in the flat. He cuts it up, but can’t play off the good blocks thrown by Washington (+0.5) and Sanzenbacher (+0.5).

7:48 / 2nd & 2 / YSU 8 / I-form Double Tights / 6 yd
Iso left. Person (-0.5) pulls and blocks nothing, Rehring (+1) and Boone (+1) throw solid blocks on the play side, and Beanie (+1) fights his way for a good gain considering the defensive set. Hmmm I smell impending doom.

??? / 1st & Goal / YSU 2 / I-form Double Tight / TO
Fail. Down goes Beanie (-2). I don’t care how much it hurts, you’re a big boy and you can hold a football for 0.2 seconds while you collapse to the ground with a minor injury. Red zone blunders continue. Fate (-1).

??? / 1st & 10 / YSU 4 / Base 4-3 / -2 yd
Hey BTN (-235,439), don’t forget to put your graphics up every play! Abdallah (+1) blows up the HB draw for a loss. Moeller, Rose, Terry, and Rolle ready to clean up.

??? / 2nd & 12 / YSU 2 / 4-3 Under / 1 yd
Moeller is up on the line, and Hines is filling in the 3rd LB slot on the field. Moeller (+1) owns the run.

5:55 / 3rd & 11 / YSU 3 / Base Nickel / 7 yd
Quick timing route. Not much to be done there with Chekwa (-0.5) playing back.

5:10 / 4th & 4 / YSU 10 / Punt Return / -
The crappy FCS punt bounces dead. OSU ball.

5:00 / 1st & 10 / YSU 46 / Shotgun Split RB / 5 yd
Why is Boeckman still in? Quick draw by Herron (+0.5). Solid blocking in the middle by Person (+0.5) and Rehring (+0.5). Solid gainer.

4:28 / 2nd & 5 / YSU 41 / Ace Bunch Right / 4 yd
Boeckman (+1) fakes to Herron and Small on the end around. Not sure whether this was just a double fake sneak, or whether there’s some sort of read option that goes into this play. Either way, a 4 yard gain up the middle does the job.

3:51 / 3rd & 1 / YSU 37 / I-form Double Tight / 5 yd
Iso right. Rehring doesn’t do a lot in the hole, but he did get in the way and get a chip off. We’ll call it a push. Wilson (+1) takes two guys effectively out of the play, turning what could have been a big loss to a first down.

3:29 / 1st & 10 / YSU 32 / Shotgun Split Backs / 6 yd
Smith (+0.5) sneaks out into the flat, runs hard, and picks up some good yardage. Standard throw by Boeckman (+0.5)

2:51 / 2nd & 4 / YSU 26 / I-Form Twins Left / 0 yd
YSU overloaded with the blitz here. No need to analyze the blocking, since there were too many guys coming off the corner to prevent the OLB from getting to Herron early.

2:10 / 3rd & 3 / YSU 26 / Shotgun 5 WR / 26 yd
Posey (+2) runs a quick stop route, and Boeckman (+1) hits him right in the chest. Posey’s quick little juke dodges the overly aggressive tackling technique by the YSU defender. At that point, it’s just a sprint toward the end zone. Touchdown Bucks, PAT good, 33-0 Buckeyes.

2:00 / - / - / Kickoff / -
Pettrey knocks it to the 1. Sabino (-0.5) overpursues and misses the play. Lane (+0.5) ends up tripping up the returner.

OK, I need to go to bed. I’ll try to finish the game tomorrow. If not, then definitely Friday.