The Ohio State offense continued to expand its arsenal in response to odd (3-man) defensive fronts in its 62-14 over Maryland.

Like previous opponents, the Terrapins aligned their nose guard head up over the center with their two defensive ends in tight “4i” positions over the outside half of the offensive tackles. Maryland kept their two outside linebackers in overhang positions for a seven man defensive front. And they often brought a safety down as the eighth run defender; mixing and matching single high cover 1 and cover 3 (along with some some split safety coverage).

Ohio State has continued to tweak its run game to respond to such looks. In addition to running tight zone “Cab” to base block (rather than read) the additional backside defenders, the Buckeyes placed their tight end in the backfield as an offset fullback to run a lead zone off-tackle play. The aiming point was the bubble in the defense between the defensive end and outside linebacker, with the tight end leading on the front side inside linebacker.

Ohio State ran the play with the tight end aligned either to the same side or opposite the tailback, and showed a backside run-pass slant option with the concept.

But the Buckeyes’ primary run success came with “Bash”. Bash is a tight zone play for the quarterback, with a backside sweep away from the offensive line blocks (Bash stands for backside sweep). The goal is to have the offensive line tight zone blocking action hold the linebackers, freeing the tailback. Bash continues to be effective against the odd fronts, as that alignment results in openings on the edge.

On Saturday, Ohio State was most successful running the play to the boundary out of four wide sets to negate the field safety coming down at the snap.