COLUMBUS, Ohio — C.J. Stroud believed Ohio State had the best offense in the country coming into Saturday night’s game against Penn State.

When adversity struck against the best defense the Buckeyes had seen this season in Penn State, when Ohio State had to grind out a win instead of dominating opponents like it had been used to doing, when Stroud left the field of a dogfight instead of a cake walk, the quarterback still believed Ohio State had the best offense in the country.

It just wasn’t perfect.

“That’s the thing about football,” Stroud said. “It’s not a perfect sport. We’re not going to run the ball well every game. We’re not going to throw the ball well every game. It’s just about fight. That’s what we did, and I’m just so proud of my team to keep going.”

The stats still show Ohio State at the top: averaging 548.1 yards per game and 8.24 yards per play — first and second, respectively, in the country. The Buckeyes are tied for sixth with Alabama and SMU with 43 offensive touchdowns.

Stroud remains in the top-10, averaging 324.3 passing yards per game. Freshman running back TreVeyon Henderson is still the best running back in the country in terms of yards per carry, averaging 7.9 yards each time he touches the ball.

But there are issues to be addressed, issues that led to Ohio State grading one offensive player as a champion against Penn State: Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who brought in six catches on seven receptions for 97 yards.

Ohio State wasn’t the best offense in the country against Penn State.

As Nebraska approaches and big games inch closer, what will it take for the Buckeyes to get back to earning that title?

Ohio State head coach Ryan Day seems to think it starts up front, calling out the false starts and the snap infractions the offensive line accumulated that kept the Buckeyes offense off schedule.

“That’s kind of a herky-jerky game, but it gets a team like us a little bit out of rhythm,” Day said. “We have to go back and think about in games like that how we can get back on rhythm.”

The offensive line didn’t give Henderson much room to work with either. Outside of the three carries for 10 yards or more, the freshman averaged two yards per carry, recording six carries for either no gain or for loss against the Nittany Lions front.

In his seven career games up until Penn State Henderson had recorded four total carries of either no gain or for loss.

“Yeah, it was tough. That was a physical game,” Henderson said. “But I stayed the course, we stayed the course and sooner or later, the run game, we got it going a little bit.”

However, Day feels Ohio State was not far off.

Even though his quarterback said the Penn State defense was “calling some of our plays out,” it’s something the head coach wasn’t rattled by, saying sometimes defenses are right and sometimes they are wrong.

“They had a game plan coming in and you could tell they worked hard because they gave us a bunch of looks we hadn’t quite prepared for. We expected that,” Day said. We knew we weren’t going to get just base defense. I think they maybe played it just a few snaps and they were coming every snap.

“That’s what we’re going to get when you’re a highly explosive offense is guys are going to come after you. We have to handle that a little bit better.”

Part of it comes down to trust, a trust that Stroud has to gain from Day and Day had to gain from Stroud from Day 1.

“‘It’s just me and you,’” Stroud said he remembers hearing from his head coach when he first arrived at Ohio State. “‘If you don’t trust me, I don’t trust you. We’ll never win.’”

Even when the offense wasn’t working, Day trusted his offense, bringing his offense on the field on three fourth-and-short plays, one of which turned into a field goal after a false start.

And as the season continues, Day will continue to trust his offense, something that allows Stroud and the rest of that offense to find that rhythm.

That’s why after the Penn State game, after the Buckeyes faced adversity, Stroud was able to say that Ohio State still has the best offense in the country.

“It just took a minute for it to click,” Stroud said. “And finally we’re rolling, we’re clicking now.”