During head coach Urban Meyer’s press conference on Tuesday leading up to the College Football Playoff national championship game, he mentioned a pretty telling statistic regarding former Ohio State players and how they’re faring at the next level. Though his words were in response to a question about former Buckeye running back Carlos Hyde and the exceedingly admirable job Ezekiel Elliott has done replacing him, the unit of the team I’m about to discuss here has just as much pertinence to what he was talking about.
“Seven players left our program and are starting, not playing, not backups, not practice squad; starting in the National Football League. In the history of college football, I’d like to know if that’s ever been done. I don’t think it has, starting. That tells you how good that team was last year,” Meyer remarked.
Of those players currently starting on NFL rosters who starred for the Bucks as seniors last year, a handful of them are offensive lineman. In fact, you will be able to see a few of their exploits on full display this coming Sunday in the divisional round of the NFL playoffs.
Center Corey Linsley has quickly made his way into being a regular contributor for the Green Bay Packers front five, and will be snapping the ball as well as blocking for Aaron Rodgers against the Dallas Cowboys. Later that day, left guard Jack Mewhort will get the second playoff start of his career for the Indianapolis Colts as they travel to Denver with the hope of knocking off Peyton Manning and company. Incidentally, Mewhort played tackle for OSU but moved a little bit closer to center for Indy yet has found his niche on their O-line in his rookie season.
Ohio State Offensive Line Made Huge Strides Despite Graduation Losses
It has to be an immense source of pride for the Buckeye faithful to see two stalwarts of last year’s group that was a win away from the final BCS title game taking part in NFL postseason action a year later on the eve of OSU’s participation in the first championship game of the new Playoff era. What this also demonstrates is the fact that the Ohio State offensive line came into 2014 having incurred pretty significant losses to graduation.
This unit was always going to be a work in progress going into preseason camp, and Meyer emphasized as much in discussing where he saw them early on. The Virginia Tech loss highlighted the glaring issues still facing the O-line in run blocking and pass protection. The Buckeye ground game only managed 108 yards that night while the inexperienced (at the time) J.T. Barrett was sacked seven times and threw three interceptions in the 35-21 defeat.
As disappointing as that setback was, this group kept grinding and by the end of Big Ten regular season play the “night and day” level of improvement was crystal clear. It’s a testament to the job offensive line coach Ed Warinner has done to see this unit grow the manner in which it did. By season’s end, three Buckeye offensive linemen garnered all-Big Ten honors, including sophomore right guard Pat Elflein (first team), junior left tackle Taylor Decker (second team) and senior right tackle Darryl Baldwin (honorable mention).
Much has been made about Ohio State’s “next man up” situation at quarterback which in and of itself could make their run to the title game perhaps the most unprecedented in the history of college football. That said, I think the overall cohesiveness of the offensive line, especially when sophomore Cardale Jones was inserted into the lineup, has played a key role getting the Buckeyes to where they currently find themselves. It has afforded Jones an elevated level of confidence in the pocket that might not be possible without the hard work the big guys in front of him have put forth this season.
On Tuesday, Meyer also reiterated how he sees this offense. Though there is the tempo and finesse of the zone read-style set Oregon will bring to Arlington this coming Monday, he emphasized the fact the the Buckeyes are more of a “power run team in a spread set.” Having a line that can create space and win the battle at the line of scrimmage in such a system is incredibly important. The last two Buckeye victories en route to this looming battle with the Ducks were as evident of examples as there is.
As I discussed in an earlier piece about Elliott, his recent emergence is an icing on the cake of sorts for a conference where prolific running back play was a continuous story throughout the season. It seemed that as the offensive line went, so went Elliott. Their massive improvement paved the way for him to put up Heisman worthy numbers in the two biggest games for Ohio State this year.
In the Big Ten championship game and Sugar Bowl, Elliott has combined to rush for a mind-boggling 450 yards and four touchdowns at a similarly astounding 11.25 yards per carry. Another component of Ohio State’s success in the run game has been predicated upon skill position players being able to demonstrate some physicality and block downfield. Still, the impact that these relatively young players on the O-line have had creating havoc in the trenches for opposing defensive fronts, especially down the stretch, cannot be underestimated.
Though Ohio State football is perennially looked at as a big dog program that almost has that “you either love them or hate them” feel to it, what was done by these players and this coaching staff really gives them a likable underdog mantra to them going into this winner-take-all tussle with Oregon. The Buckeye offensive front will have their hands full with a Duck defense that can get at the quarterback, as they demonstrated in their 59-20 blowout of Jameis Winston and Florida State in the Rose Bowl semifinal. More on that unit and how they compare with OSU’s in a future article leading up to the big game.
As I made brief mention of earlier, if the Scarlet and Gray can pull this off with their third quarterback and an offensive line that was morose at best early on yet slowly but surely morphed into a fairly elite bunch, it will go down as perhaps the sport’s most unlikely run at championship glory.
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