C.J. Stroud, Buckeyes offense doing 'anything to get a win' in November

COLUMBUS — A bushel basket of passing yards and touchdown passes, that’s been the harvest for Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud almost every game he’s been the starter over the last two seasons, but now throw in his ability to run the ball if called upon.

He did that last week in the 21-7 win at Northwestern. It proved to be the difference for the Buckeyes on day when winds in the 25-40 mph range made passing an adventure at best, though Ohio State still gave it the old college try with 26 attempts — and just 10 completions. 

Not only that, but when the full day was done oddsmakers re-established Stroud as the favorite in the Heisman Trophy race, since the man who had passed him the week before, quarterback Hendon Hooker of Tennessee, had gone down to defeat at Georgia.

The upshoot: Winning is what matters most.

“100 percent,” Stroud said this week as the No. 2 Buckeyes prepare for Saturday’s home game with Indiana. “Hendon is a great quarterback. I’m a fan of his, what he’s been able to do this season and these past couple of years. I think he’s been very consistent, so kudos to him, man. I think he’s a great [quarterback] on a great Tennessee team. …”

As for the Heisman odds, “I don’t really look at stuff like that. But I think this is a week for us to kind of get our groove back throwing the ball, even effecting the run game some more, trying to clean some reads up to where we can make it more clean, get some more yards, be better on first and second, and of course we’ve got to be better on third down. So looking forward to kinda playing against Indiana this week.”

That’s because the weather forecast for Saturday at Ohio Stadium calls for cloudy skies, a high temperature around 41, wind from the west at about 10-15 mph with a chance for a passing rain or snow shower.

In other words, more like a football day in the midwest in mid-November. No prohibitive winds like last week at Evanston, Ill. No reason for Ohio State coach Ryan Day to have two voices debating in his head on what to call like last week, when it clearly was tough for him simply to shelve the Buckeyes’ vaunted air attack in favor of trying to run it down Northwestern’s throat.

“Yeah, you might have my head bugged in that game,” Day said, smiling. “That’s exactly what it was. And that was the conversation during the week.”

The coaches knew there was going to be some type of wind event, based on the forecasts. 

“You looked at your phone and you’re like ’30 mph winds, 40 mph winds. Nah, we’ll be all right. We’ll figure it out like we always do. But what if it isn’t?’ “ Day said. “So I went back and watched the Patriots play the Bills in the ‘wind bowl’ [last December in Buffalo]. I went back and tried to find all the wind games from the last couple of years in the NFL, watched the Browns play the Raiders up there [in Cleveland] in like 30 mph winds. 

“I just tried to figure out, ‘OK, if this happens like this, what do we do?’ I didn’t have a lot of answers. There wasn’t a lot going on in those games [offensively]. … It’s a real thing, but at the same we tell our guys, ‘We’ve got to go win the game. We’ve just got to play.’ If you make it a bigger thing it becomes more of a distraction.”

Stroud understood Day’s conundrum.

“It’s tough being a playcaller … in that type of environment with just the weather,” Stroud said. “So I definitely think he did a great job of getting us good runs and good plays that our O line and running backs like to run, and then involving me as well. 

“We came up with some stuff on the sideline to get me involved. And of course some of the passes we threw were to kind of make sure the weather wasn’t the issue … and we’ll just continue to grow from it.”

Balance with a definite lean toward throwing the ball, what with the likes of Stroud, Ohio State receivers Marvin Harrison Jr., Emeka Egbuka, Julian Fleming and Cade Stover, and an offensive line that’s considered among the elite in pass protection this season – that’s the Ohio State way this season. But if conditions or circumstances demand the quarterback run a little to enhance the rushing attack …

“I tell coach I’m willing to do anything to get a win, so it’s good to put that on film and definitely I think we can build from it,” Stroud said.

Stretching out his legs and running is nothing new to him, he said, since he does it a lot in practice during the week. But doing it in a game with the season on the line for Ohio State …

“I think honestly it even made me more comfortable, made me more confident in myself because I haven’t run the ball like that since my senior year in high school except for my freshman year up at Michigan State having that [48-yard] touchdown run,” Stroud said, referring to his late appearance that day during which he didn’t throw a pass. 

“So it made me a little more confident being able to run in that atmosphere, that environment. I don’t know if I’ll do it more, but I’ll be open to it.”