OSU works on its passing offense
Associated Press
COLUMBUS
With a Saturday night game against No. 8 Wisconsin looming, the Ohio State Buckeyes are trying to figure out why their usually dynamic aerial attack is suddenly sputtering.
Quarterback J.T. Barrett struggled finding open receivers and then getting the ball to them in Saturday’s 38-17 win over Indiana, completing just nine passes in 21 attempts for 93 yards, with one touchdown and one interception. Often the Buckeyes resorted to Barrett tucking the ball and running. He did so a career high 26 times, picking up 137 yards and a touchdown. As far as coach Urban Meyer is concerned, that’s too many hits for the team’s best player.
“That’s going to be worked on extremely hard,” Meyer said Monday. “It’s a combination, it wasn’t one issue but several. Either it’s a misfire, not a well-executed pattern or a dropped ball. We just have to do much better.”
Barrett blamed it on not being able to get everyone on the same page for every play.
“We were in some good plays sometimes, and whether it (was) me messing up on an assignment or a read, or a receiver messing up or the O-line messing up, we just weren’t clicking on all cylinders on all units on offense at times,” a subdued Barrett said Monday. “We played poorly because we didn’t play with great fundamentals.”
Ohio State may be the one of the few places where there is hand-wringing after a three-touchdown win, but that’s the way it is in Columbus. After the game Meyer called the passing failures “alarming,” but he said Monday that might have been an overreaction. And he said some adversity can make players work even harder.
“I think urgency is always good, absolutely,” he said. “Lou Holtz would (say), and it’s forever branded on my heart: You don’t attack a team when you lose a game. You attack them when you win the game (and) it’ll play well. So we’re attacking, and there’s urgency.”