Tale of the Tape: Florida Atlantic

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The new season is here and it is time to look at Ohio State's first opponent, Florida Atlantic. Sure, everyone knows the name of the head coach with Lane Kiffin coming back for another year with the Owls and there are a few players on this roster that have some recognition as well after transferring from other programs to FAU for a better opportunity to play.

But what to people really know about FAU outside of that? Last season was not a great one with FAU finishing 5-7 on the season and this team is without several key contributors from the previous season.

You better believe that Kiffin has circled this game on the schedule as a big one and a good chunk of offseason has been spent trying to find a way to test an Ohio State defense that is coming off of a subpar season last year from a production standpoint. The track record in openers has not been great for Kiffin with FAU however with a 42-19 loss to Navy in 2017 and then a 63-14 bludgeoning at the hands of Oklahoma in 2018.

FAU will follow up this game with a big in-state game against UCF the following week before the schedule gets a little easier with a road trip to Ball State in week three.

Will the Owls have enough offense to make this game interesting as Ohio State's offense is going to be brand new in many parts with a new QB and several new-ish offensive linemen? There will be plenty of intrigue going into this one as it is the first game of the official Ryan Day tenure with the Buckeyes, but don't forget, he was out there as the head coach in week one of last season, a game where the Ohio State offense scored 77 points against Oregon State but also allowed 31 to the Beavers.

We are going to go the Tale of the Tape on FAU and while there are no numbers from this season to draw upon, we still can get a better idea of who to watch and what to watch going into Saturday's season opener.

With no games to draw from in 2019, everything here will be just speculation and drawing (where applicable) from the past season(s). So many eyes will be on Justin Fields as he makes his first start for the Buckeyes. Fans may still draw back to the spring game and a less than impressive outing and time may have eroded the fact that it was a split roster with a handful of players out for medical reasons. None of those things will come into play here in week one of the season. Fields will be out there with as healthy of a roster as Ohio State will have all season before the wear-and-tear of the year starts to grind players down. There is reason to be excited about the guys that Fields will be throwing the ball to. There are a lot of known quantities with KJ Hill, Austin Mack, Bin Victor, CJ Saunders and Chris Olave coming back at receiver and all four tight ends returning. A lot of eyes will be on Garrett Wilson as we expect to see him out there here in week one, he is just too good not to play and might as well get your feet wet at the earliest opportunity available. Let's tap the brakes right now on anyone expecting this offense to pick up where it left off against Michigan and Northwestern last season however. The bar is set pretty high when Dwayne Haskins threw for more than 300 yards and five touchdowns in the opener against Oregon State last year. But even at that point, Haskins was not the Haskins that we saw later in the season. People are going to need to understand that this is a growing process with a young quarterback, especially one that has not even been in the program a full 12 months yet. Success will be there but be prepared for a couple of missed throws, bad reads and other setbacks along the way.

It really does not make a lot of sense to try and predict who is really going to go out there in week one for Florida Atlantic, an out-of-conference foe with a roster filled with names that most Ohio State fans have not heard much, if any, about at any point. Zyon Gilbert may be the one exception of who to talk about as one of the better defensive players on this roster but aside from him, the secondary is going to be a work in progress. The Owls were 9th in C-USA against the pass, which is still better than what they were against the run. In the 2018 season opener, Oklahoma was a precise 19-23 against the Owls for 334 yards and three touchdowns. Kyler Murray went 9-11 in limited work throwing the ball. The good news for FAU is that Justin Fields has not had time to develop completely as a passer and it might be far-fetched to expect him to be as accurate in his first game but the bad news is that Ohio State is every bit as talented on the offensive side of the ball and this defense is going to be tested to see if a change at DC to Glenn Spencer is going to amount to a different outcome or just more of the same.