He threw four touchdown passes in Ohio State’s 45-31 win over Minnesota to start the season and nearly broke the school’s single-game passing record with 484 yards last week in a 35-28 loss to Oregon.
The California kid has been better from a volume standpoint than efficiency. He leads the Big Ten in passing yards, completions, touchdown passes, yards per completion and points responsible for, but he’s just fourth in passing efficiency.
He has thrown a pair of interceptions that both appeared to be errant throws, and he started out throwing high against Oregon.
While he bombed the Golden Gophers with big passes to put down their threat, he missed a handful of important throws that could have changed the outcome against the Ducks, who were not able to hang with Ohio State’s talented receivers.
Nonetheless, a disappointing defense and less-dependable-than-expected running game are larger issues for the Buckeyes through two games.
All things considered, it is not hard to conclude they are 1-1 in large part because of how Stroud has played.
They could be 0-2 if he had been worse, and they could be 2-0 if he had been better.
“Better” is a high bar to clear, however, something head coach Ryan Day seemed to be aware of when he was asked Tuesday if he had thought about changing quarterbacks at any point.
“Not after Saturday,” he said. “We have to help him more. We have to run better and play better defense. That’s the bottom line.”
He acknowledged that Stroud, who got at least one day off from throwing during the preseason to rest his right arm, is a little banged up.
The quarterback referred to that in his postgame comments Saturday but didn’t seem too concerned.
Day said that’s part of being a quarterback.
“You’re always going to have some bumps and bruises. You play in the spring and in the preseason, you have a black jersey on and you’re never touched. You go out there and play you’re going to get banged around a bit,” he said, noting predecessors Justin Fields and J.T. Barrett went through the same thing.
“That’s part of being a quarterback at a big time level. It’s something he will have to get used to and work through.”
ANALYSIS: 5 takeaways from second look at Ohio State’s loss to Oregon https://t.co/WpIIM5bkjr
— Marcus Hartman (@marcushartman) September 14, 2021
The Ohio State running game ranks seventh in the Big Ten and 66th nationally at 164.5 yards per game. Those rankings can get skewed early in the year with teams facing disparate levels of competition, but the Buckeyes’ long-standing goal is to run for 200 yards or more every week.
The line is big and talented, but it’s also full of new faces in new places.
Center Luke Wypler, right guard Paris Johnson Jr. and right tackle Dawand Jones are all first-year starters, and left tackle Nicholas Petit-Frere and Thayer Munford are in new positions compared to last year.
Oregon was able to keep the Buckeyes off balance both by putting an extra defender in the box and playing a “two-gap” style up front. That meant the Ducks defensive line was holding the line and clogging up blockers to let their linebackers run free and tackle instead of trying to penetrate and make plays in the backfield.
“We just never got into a rhythm,” Day said. “Sometimes when you go against your own defense for 30-some practices, you get into a rhythm of the style you’re going up against.
“They were a little bit different by going more 2-gapping and a different style. We did not quite get into a rhythm there. Those are all things we have to clean up. There were some good hits in there, but we weren’t consistent enough.”
In large part because of Stroud, the Buckeyes moved the ball up and down the field against Oregon.
They came up empty in several scoring opportunities, though. That was more of a team effort — including Day’s decision to eschew field goal tries multiple times.
“We got really good scheme and really good plays,” Day said. “We have to finish off drives better. This past week, we did not convert on fourth down. We got off schedule with some penalties. That really hurt us, especially in the score zone. We got down there three times and we had some false start penalties that got us into second-and-15. Then we did not convert on third down or fourth down.
“When things are cooking, we have a chance to be very explosive, which I think you have seen. Now we have to do a better job of playing complementary football (defense) and finishing off those drives when we can.”
SATURDAY’S GAME
Tulsa at Ohio State, 3:30 p.m., FS1, 1410
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