-4 in turnover margin while giving up 465 yards

[Millhouse]

(Not counting that meaningless last play)

That game combined for 1000 yards of offense. Mariota had a 154 rating before that worthless final throw. Oregon still had 465 yards. They had more yards per play than Ohio State. Ohio State overcame a -4 turnover margin. Oregon had shorter fields than Ohio State. It was just a handful of third downs here and a big 4th down stop followed by a monster punt. other 4th downs were just long enough to make it too tough for Helfrich to go for it.

If you guys want to think that the offenses are very different, despite Urban Meyer saying that both teams could call the other's plays, knock yourselves out.

Oregon 4th downs
4th and 3 at ORE 45 punt. preceded by incompletion
4th and Goal at OSU 3 (went and failed) preceded by 4 yard run
4th and 4 at OSU 9 FG preceded by incompletion
4th and 4 at OSU 6 FG preceded by incompletion

each one understandable but I wonder if Helfrich was thinking more about going for it on 4th downs, maybe he would've ran on third down more and turned FGs into scores.

ohio state made third down stops, oregon got turnovers and oregon couldn't punch it in.

 

[OrangePA]

Again running the football between the tackles - the OL imposing its will on the defense - that was the key to the Ohio State win last night.

I have not looked at the stats, but I suspect that Oregon threw for more yards than OSU and it didn't matter.

When it needed to, Ohio State could run the ball for big yardage between the tackles.

 

[Scooch]

No one should be using one game, and the national championship game at that, to make broad generalizations about what is the "best" kind of offensive system to employ.

Football is all about matchups.

Even great systems aren't undefeatable. Every single one has its weaknesses against a certain matchup.

But I'm sure there will be 1000 posts claiming how one random Oregon vs Ohio State game "proves" that their preferred offense is the bestest.

 

[Millhouse]

Again running the football between the tackles - the OL imposing its will on the defense - that was the key to the Ohio State win last night.

I have not looked at the stats, but I suspect that Oregon threw for more yards than OSU and it didn't matter.

When it needed to, Ohio State could run the ball for big yardage between the tackles.

if teams planned to go for it on 4th down more, they could run more.

oregon treated 3rd and 4 as passing downs and put themselves in a bind on 4th down.

ohio state threw the ball well yesterday by the way. i could say that the team with the more efficient passing game won. (better rating for OSU)

 

[upperdeck]

I think the key thing regardless of yds is that Oregon had 5 effective drives , 4 drives over 5 plays, one drives was the big play score,

osu had 8-9, the turnovers really changed the game from being a 60-27 type game.

by the middle of the 4th Oregon had run 10 plays in the 2nd half and scored 10 pts.

if OSU doesnt fumble on the 90 yd drive the game is over at the half.

oregon should have ran more , but they were so concerned about tempo and passing they didnt bother. 3 and outs and 3-4-5 play drives killed their own D, its great if you score quickly , not so good if you dont.

 

[TheCusian]

if teams planned to go for it on 4th down more, they could run more.

oregon treated 3rd and 4 as passing downs and put themselves in a bind on 4th down.

ohio state threw the ball well yesterday by the way. i could say that the team with the more efficient passing game won. (better rating for OSU)

Yeah - but it was classic "run down your throat with a big back" to open up everything else. I stopped paying attention once tOSU started getting 9 yards per carry with their RB. Game over.

 

[Millhouse]

I think the key thing regardless of yds is that Oregon had 5 effective drives , 4 drives over 5 plays, one drives was the big play score,

osu had 8-9, the turnovers really changed the game from being a 60-27 type game.

by the middle of the 4th Oregon had run 10 plays in the 2nd half and scored 10 pts.

if OSU doesnt fumble on the 90 yd drive the game is over at the half.

oregon should have ran more , but they were so concerned about tempo and passing they didnt bother. 3 and outs and 3-4-5 play drives killed their own D, its great if you score quickly , not so good if you dont.

eh, ohio state had one more 7 play drive than oregon did

oregon had short fields where yards are tougher to come by

i think you're too dismissive of big plays

 

[Millhouse]

Yeah - but it was classic "run down your throat with a big back" to open up everything else. I stopped paying attention once tOSU started getting 9 yards per carry with their RB. Game over.

they averaged 4.8 for the game

 

[NineOneSeven]

Oregon killed themselves by not capitalizing off of Ohio state mistakes.

Hard to watch. Huge drops, ill-timed penalties, awful run d.

Hate osu. And I live in Ohio so it's much worse.

 

[Full_Rebar]

If Oregon catches those 2 3rd down passes in the 1st Q, who knows how the game goes. 1st drop occurs with them up 7-0 and close to midfield. 2nd drop is on a wide-open deep throw into fg range.

Not saying their d would have stopped Ohio St, but they might have put up 21 of their own in the 1st.

Game came down to 3rd downs and red zone. Ohio St. converted some long 3rd downs that led to scoring drives.

 

[Millhouse]

If Oregon catches those 2 3rd down passes in the 1st Q, who knows how the game goes. 1st drop occurs with them up 7-0 and close to midfield. 2nd drop is on a wide-open deep throw into fg range.

Not saying their d would have stopped Ohio St, but they might have put up 21 of their own in the 1st.

Game came down to 3rd downs and red zone. Ohio St. converted some long 3rd downs that led to scoring drives.

as college football becomes all about offense and teams roll up 1000 yards in a hohum way where people expected even more offense, the whole sport is going to come down to a few plays at the ends of drives

 

[TheCusian]

they averaged 4.8 for the game

That's pretty good. Good enough to open up the passing game.

 

[SU2NASA]

And I live in Ohio

 

[upperdeck]

they averaged 4.8 for the game

the qb avg 1.8 . but he had a -20 yd fumble play as well as a bunch of 1 yd runs for first down.. the rb's avg 7.

 

[Chip]

Ohio State's OL deserves a lot of the credit for last night. Opened initial holes for Elliott, and he's good enough to take it from there. Gave Jones all day to throw the ball. He and his playmakers at WR took it from there.

 

[BuffOrange]

Anyone watch the espn2 coaches roundtable...omg. It was like they cloned Schaefer & Marrone.
Tons of field position talk. Even after OSU drove 99yds no problem.
They couldn't stop obsessing over Oregon passing on the FG, while obv. ignoring all of OSU's 4th down conversions.
"Ya know if Oregon 'took the points' there it'd be a 1 possession game now!"..
"That's like a turnover!"
Hey ya know what else was like a turnover? All of Oregon's crappy punts.

 

[Millhouse]

Anyone watch the espn2 coaches roundtable...omg. It was like they cloned Schaefer & Marrone.
Tons of field position talk. Even after OSU drove 99yds no problem.
They couldn't stop obsessing over Oregon passing on the FG, while obv. ignoring all of OSU's 4th down conversions.
"Ya know if Oregon 'took the points' there it'd be a 1 possession game now!"..
"That's like a turnover!"
Hey ya know what else was like a turnover? All of Oregon's crappy punts.

i made it through a few minutes and got sick of them not knowing how to work a remote control

 

[OrangePA]

if teams planned to go for it on 4th down more, they could run more.

oregon treated 3rd and 4 as passing downs and put themselves in a bind on 4th down.

ohio state threw the ball well yesterday by the way. i could say that the team with the more efficient passing game won. (better rating for OSU)

Yes, you could say that, but the key to the game was OSU's overpowering run game.

The OL and the RBs dominated Oregon.

 

[OrangePA]

No one should be using one game, and the national championship game at that, to make broad generalizations about what is the "best" kind of offensive system to employ.

Football is all about matchups.

Even great systems aren't undefeatable. Every single one has its weaknesses against a certain matchup.

But I'm sure there will be 1000 posts claiming how one random Oregon vs Ohio State game "proves" that their preferred offense is the bestest.

For me at least, I was following up on my observation about the Green Bay game - that the GB OL dominated Dallas - that GB's ability to run the ball gave much needed relief to Rodgers who could barely move.

And, I think maybe you are confusing "systems" with execution.

OSU uses a similar system to Oregon - a read option.

But it was the execution of the run game that made the difference.

Give me a great OL and a great rushing attack any day. I'll win a lot of games.

 

[PhatOrange]

players also made plays. oregon 1st half drops were huge. osu offensive line literally beat down oregon line to the point they gave up. elliot ran wild on those delayed counters and pulling lineman just buried oregon. they knew what was coming and still could not physically stop them. osu backs and lineman just ran over people. my god, cardale jones head on knocked their 295 lb defensive tackle back 3 feet on one hit.

 

[TheCusian]

Both teams wanted to establish the run up the middle. Just like the Eagles. If you can do that successfully - everything else is available.

 

[Millhouse]

For me at least, I was following up on my observation about the Green Bay game - that the GB OL dominated Dallas - that GB's ability to run the ball gave much needed relief to Rodgers who could barely move.

And, I think maybe you are confusing "systems" with execution.

OSU uses a similar system to Oregon - a read option.

But it was the execution of the run game that made the difference.

Give me a great OL and a great rushing attack any day. I'll win a lot of games.

i think we're all on board with that. i just bristle at this idea that OSU is very different from oregon (not you, i know), that scheme doesn't matter, and that passing doesn't matter. i think that if you spread teams out, you get efficient passing. you get big lanes to throw, you see through and it's hard for defenses to disguise what they want to do when they're spread out across 55 yards, and you often know where you're going with the ball before the play starts. when you do that, passing sets up running, running sets up passing, no need to worry about chickens vs eggs. the chickens are just there. (this is a stupid analogy)

you don't need to be 2 TE to be "power" if that's the type of QB you have

i made my own bed yelling about leach so much but i still remember arguments from the 90s where people told me that you couldn't run out of a shotgun hurry up spread out offense which was sure news to me after enjoying thurman thomas's career so much. i used to think it was too hard to find dual threat passers so i used to want to prioritize passing - you still need efficient passing, that hasn't changed for me. I used to think that dual threat meant terrible passing in most cases. Cecil Howard, etc.

now that the run pass option packaged plays has made it so easy for QBs, it's not so hard to find dual threat guys who can complete easy passes and be efficient. My irrelevant thinking has changed there

 

[Scooch]

For me at least, I was following up on my observation about the Green Bay game - that the GB OL dominated Dallas - that GB's ability to run the ball gave much needed relief to Rodgers who could barely move.

And, I think maybe you are confusing "systems" with execution.

OSU uses a similar system to Oregon - a read option.

But it was the execution of the run game that made the difference.

Give me a great OL and a great rushing attack any day. I'll win a lot of games.

I don't think anyone would disagree.

But, give me a great OL and a great passing game and I'll also win a lot of games.

They operative word is "great", not necessarily "running" or "passing". Teams that are "great" (not just good) at doing things tend to win more than they lose.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Hey ya know what else was like a turnover? All of Oregon's crappy punts.

Someday, more people are going to get this. At some point one of the talking heads is going to start making these observations and it will catch on.

 

[OrangePA]

I don't think anyone would disagree.

But, give me a great OL and a great passing game and I'll also win a lot of games.

They operative word is "great", not necessarily "running" or "passing". Teams that are "great" (not just good) at doing things tend to win more than they lose.

Certainly a great OL helps the QB pass the ball.

But if you have a great OL, it behooves you to run the ball - to impose your will on the opponent.

The best OL I can recall - other than the Green Bay Packers OL with Thurston, Kramer, Ringo - was the Jimmy Johnson Dallas Cowboys OL.

They beat people and they did it primarily with the running game - Emmitt Smith.

They could obviously throw the ball, but what made them so tough was the way they ran the ball.

Under Bill Parcells the Giants in 1990-91 were successful because they pounded the ball and ate huge chunks of time off the clock.

In Philadelphia, Andy Reid had terrific success but he could never truly run the ball - when he had to stuff it, he couldn't and that's a big reason why the Eagles didn't win the Super Bowl during those years.

This past weekend Green Bay and Ohio State demonstrated how devastating a strong OL and run game can be to the opponent. In doing so, they once again proved that despite the rule changes and the changes in offenses, the old adage is true - you win when you run the ball.