Chip Kelly, Ohio State’s offensive coordinator, put it the way he saw it at the start of training camp.
“Offensively, we’ve honestly taken a big hit in the first eight practices,” Kelly said Thursday. “That’s a pretty good defense.”
Jim Knowles, defensive coordinator of the Buckeyes, disagrees.
“It’s nice, but it’s a battle every day,” Knowles said minutes later when it was his turn to take the podium at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. “I mean, you have an offense, great receivers, a good running game. It’s just a battle every day.”
“It goes back and forth. Iron sharpens iron, and everyone challenges the other and tries to get better.”
Maybe the truth lies somewhere in the middle, maybe not. Kelly felt Saturday’s practice game was a turning point for his team, who he said completed over 70% of their passes, didn’t lose the ball and had a “really good mix” of running and passing.
“I think they really stepped up,” Kelly said. “And when the lights came on and we had a scrimmage, they all made really good plays.”
First-class quarterback play, and not just from the newly appointed starter Will Howardsteered the ship.
“I think everyone performed well that day,” Kelly said. “So we’re hoping we can do the exact same thing on Saturday and build on that.”
When asked if the Buckeyes were “normal” in terms of their tactics in the practice game, Kelly initially gave a simple answer.
“They’re not boring,” he said, referring to Ohio State’s vaunted defense in its third year under Knowles. “So I think whatever we and they installed, we did.”
Kelly noted, however, that there was no game plan for the scrimmage. For his unit, it really came down to Ohio State’s quarterbacks being successful by completing the right passes and, more importantly, being smart with the football.
“I thought they played really good situational football,” Kelly said. “What do we try to do on first down? From a covered area, we try to get two first downs. Do we try to cross the field in that situation? No, we don’t. We try to get two first downs and then get rolling.”
“Now that we’ve got some first downs, we can start making some throws, but we have to watch them play the game in the game – because in the other practices, they’re often called. So the play is called, and then sometimes it’s, ‘So, what do we do now?’ And I’m like, ‘I would never call that play against that defense. I didn’t know they were going to play that defense.'”
“But when you get a feel for the game, understand the flow of the game and the style of play, you can adapt and put your players in situations where they can make plays.”
While Kelly had high praise for all of his quarterbacks, there was no denying Howard’s performance, especially in the last week to 10 days that separated him from the rest of the group.
Day spoke about it on Thursday. Knowles was later asked about the double threat he experienced.
“Well, he makes all the throws,” Knowles said. “I mean, he’s in the pocket. He’s got great vision and strong arms. We have great receivers. He throws the ball where only the receiver can catch it. So to me, it’s not just the strong arm strength, but he makes the pinpoint passes.”
One of these recipients is Emeka Egbukaa senior who, according to Day, caught three great touchdowns in Saturday’s practice game. Egbuka was the day’s “offensive player of the game,” while the sophomore linebacker Arvell Reese deserved “Defensive Player of the Game”.
“We held a kind of simulated champions meeting just to make sure everyone understands what that means and that the ultimate goal for each of our guys is to crown a ‘champion,'” Day said. “It’s every position coach’s goal for their unit to crown a champion. And if that doesn’t happen, they need to figure out why that is.”
“You have to look at yourself in the mirror, you have to go to your position coach and find out why you didn’t get over 80% in that game.”
Day said the Buckeyes will repeat that this Saturday in their final practice game, a preparation for their season opener against Akron on Aug. 31.
Week 1 is fast approaching. The Buckeyes have a starting quarterback and, according to Kelly, the offense is slowly starting to click.
