Cardale Jones had his moments on Saturday in attempting to return to the form he had at the end of last season.
His previous two outings for Ohio State left a lot to be desired and were certainly unreflective of his performance in those three magical games. That was particularly the case last week against Northern Illinois when he was pulled after a quarter. Nevertheless, head coach Urban Meyer gave him a midweek vote of confidence by retaining him as the Buckeyes starting quarterback ahead of Saturday’s game with Western Michigan.
In the wake of a fairly comprehensive 38-12 victory over the Broncos, suffice it to say that Jones repaid that faith for the most part. The redshirt junior signal caller threw for a career-high 288 yards, two touchdowns and an interception while completing 57.6 percent of his passes in a game that never really was in doubt.
What defined Jones’ play over the course of last year’s national title run was his deep ball ability. Having Devin Smith as such a prolific threat being able to pick those balls out of the air definitely helped. With Smith now in the NFL, someone else needed to emerge.
Enter Michael Thomas, who caught a 38-yard touchdown pass from Jones in today’s win over WMU. It was one of two long throws Jones completed on the game, the other being a 40 yard toss to running back Curtis Samuel on the first play of a drive in the second quarter which led to a Buckeyes field goal.
There were some issues, though, with Jones knack for throwing the ball deep, especially in the second half. Of particular concern was his penchant for under-throwing receivers when deciding to go long. That was glaringly evident in the third quarter on Ohio State’s second drive out of the locker room.
On second and three from the Broncos 31, Jones looked to connect with Jalin Marshall who ran a post route towards the middle of the end zone. Instead, he found Western Michigan safety Darius Phillips who came up with the interception. The error came as a direct result of a pass that simply did not have enough juice on it to reach its intended target.
Jones would finish the day with 320 all-purpose yards after adding 32 on the ground. His 6’5″ 250 pound frame lends itself to a certain amount of durability when he decides to take the ball out of the pocket and run down the field. It’s a quality that can prove ideal in third and short situations where it always helps when your quarterback has an added level of mobility and is another body opposing defenses have to be aware of.
The ground game is what inevitably took the team to the finish line. Both Samuel and Ezekiel Elliott tallied rushing touchdowns in the second half, including a 40-yard run from the former to add to the previously mentioned reception of the same distance he was able to bring in.
The two would feature in the Buckeye ground and pound en route to a combined 179 yards. Elliott himself contributed 124 to that total and in so doing has had 100 or more yards in all four games this season. It’s also the ninth consecutive game overall that he has been able to eclipse the century mark in rushing yards.
For Jones, it was a step in the right direction after two off days in a row had fans questioning whether the starting job should fall back to JT Barrett. Meyer was adamant that Barrett had not done enough in relief last week against Northern Illinois to earn that privilege. In the end, his decision to stick with Jones turned out to be the right one.
Going forward, one of the biggest challenges facing Jones is being able to reacquire the power, decisiveness, consistency and deft touch associated with his deep ball pass. It’s that characteristic that played a key role in OSU’s title run in 2014, and likely will need to do the same if the Scarlet and Gray want to have a shot at repeating.
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