Spread teams out, throw it all over, run when possible and put up lots of points.
That is not exactly how the first half of the season went, though.
Lots of passes have been thrown, lots of yards have been picked up on the ground and lots of points have been scored.
The method has included more variety, though.
“We’re trying to find different ways to attack the defense based on the guys that we have,” Day said. “And I think when you look back 10 years ago — maybe more now — it was like the spread offense was kind of the new thing and that was creating a little bit of stress for the defense.”
But defensive coordinators get paid, too, and they managed to work out various ways to slow that offensive revolution that started in various corners of the college football world in the early 2000s and pretty much took over by 2012 when Urban Meyer brought the full spread offense to Ohio State.
Day is an aficionado of a slightly different version — Chip Kelly’s attack made famous at Oregon while Meyer was remaking offense in the SEC at Florida — but he was certainly a spread guy when he came to Ohio State as an assistant in 2017.
And yet since he replaced Meyer as head coach two years later, he has diversified the offense considerably.
That process continued this season with more plays from under center, more pulling linemen, more carries for receivers and more sets with multiple tight ends.
The Buckeyes even got into the I formation a few times in the first six games and showed off a full package of plays for it.
“I think maybe defenses over time have kind of caught up to just lining up in spread sets — actually I know they have,” Day said. “And so now (we’re) just trying to find more creative ways to create new surfaces, bigger surfaces, different formations that you’re not giving them what they’re working on. You’re not giving them what they’re practicing.”
Of course, not overloading the players — who have come up in the spread-dominant world in most cases — is important when it comes to putting together an offense, but Day said mixing in old stuff that’s new again has other benefits.
“I think they really embrace the challenge of trying to give the defense a lot of problems, but at the end of the day, we still have our base things that we’ll line up and play,” Day said. “We know what our base is. We know what our identity is, but I think the guys enjoy coming in on Tuesday thinking, ‘Okay, what are the new things coming in this week?’ And then go put it on the field.
“And it’s fun. You can see the excitement of when we execute plays that we’ve been working on that maybe are new. They enjoy that, and I think that’s a tribute to our coaches, but more importantly our players coming in every day with the ability to go take a meeting to the field and then go put it onto the game field because that’s not easy to do.”
NEXT GAME
SATURDAY, OCT. 22
Iowa at Ohio State, Noon, Fox, 1410
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