Thoughts on OSU's Opening Week.

The Buckeye season kicked off Saturday, the opening salvo to what could be the most interesting season for the Buckeyes in a long while. There were question marks all over for the Buckeyes, who are seeking their first playoff berth since 2016. The Buckeyes defeated Florida Atlantic University, 45-21, securing a win that no one thought was in doubt. But with these "warm-up" games, it's not about the scoreline, it's about the performance, and there was a lot of football to analyze in OSU's first real action of the season.

The biggest concern to all OSU fans was the performance of new QB Justin Fields. After enjoying one of the most dominant passing displays in Big 10 history with Dwayne Haskins last year, Justin Fields had big shoes to fill. And he filled them as much as he was able to do so in his maiden voyage. The first 10 minutes of the game must have sent OSU fans into hysterics, as Fields accounted for 4 touchdowns, 1 rushing and 3 passing, and the Buckeyes were up 28 before some could even find their seats. But then followed a 30 minute scoring drought against a defense that should have no business stopping OSU for that long, including a pretty poor throw on a screen that ended up being a fumble recovered by FAU. So which Fields is the real Fields? The answer, like every answer to this kind of question, is somewhere in the middle. As a notorious doubter of Trevor Lawrence (I say doubter, when I really mean I am unwilling to hand him best QB in college football history after one championship game) I have to stay consistent. Trevor Lawrence had three touchdowns, one was a shovel pass to Etienne, another to a wide open Ross after an Alabama CB got hurt during the play, and the third was a good throw, but Higgins still had to full stretch to get it, and many receivers don't make that play. Not saying Lawrence was bad, far from it, but stats require context, and Lawrence didn't necessarily have a masterclass like his stat line suggests. I feel the same for Fields. The run was good, showing his speed, but it was essentially a straight line foot race due to some poor defensive positioning by FAU. His four touchdown tosses were all of similar low difficulty. It's great that he could make them, and that he didn't blow simple chances, but I'd expect any college quarterback to make those throws. For the first Ruckert touchdown, Fields had a ridiculously clean pocket and no one was in 10 yards of Ruckert. Same story for the second passing touchdown to Victor. Hours of time in the pocket to hit a wide open Victor without a FAU player in sight for either Buckeye. The third to Olave was a smidgen harder, actually having to hit him in stride, but once again, a pocket so clean he could eat off it, and Olave had his man easily beat and not a soul ahead of him. Identical tale for the second pass to Ruckert. If Fields had missed on any of those throws, that would be cause for major concern. On the other hand, the scoring drought was not as bad as it might seem. While Fields had a bit of a tendency to hold on to the ball too long, some of his best plays came during the drought. The 17 yard strike to Olave on a 3rd and long, a 9 yard pass to Mack in between two defenders (that got called back unfortunately), and a couple shifty long runs on broken plays, showed me a lot more than any of his touchdown passes did. All in all, a fine debut by Fields, but he still needs to be tested by a real defense, and needs to be tested to make some real touch throws as well.

QB play was far from the only thing people were watching for on this 2019 version of the Buckeyes. The defense was another big concern after last year's less than ideal showing, but I think many fears were assuaged against FAU. Of course, it isn't top tier competition, but FAU still has a pretty decent offense coached by Lane Kiffin. But they looked helpless against OSU for a large part of this game. Just a year after looking so susceptible to the ground game, the OSU run defense was stellar, the longest run they gave up was 9 yards, and no rusher had more than 25 rushing yards. They looked fast and strong, and they looked very sure in their tackling, a marked improvement from last year. The defensive line and Chase Young were effective as everyone thought they would be, and the defense as a whole only let up two fields goals in the first three quarters, with one of those being a short yardage situation off a Buckeye turnover. The first team defense only surrendered a total of 14 points in all, and the longest play FAU had was a 38 yard reception. I wanted to see the big plays limited and the run defense improved, and that's exactly what I saw on Saturday.

Not wanting to make this article too long, I'll quickly hit on a couple other notes from watching the game. Demario McCall looked dangerous on a few of those returns, very excited to see him take a few to the house this year. Dobbins did not have the most efficient day, but didn't seem like he had a ton of room to work with and still came out with 91 yards and a touchdown. His run that set up his 1 yard dive was powerful, in my opinion his best run of the day. Master Teague looked like a great change of pace in the back up spot, showed a lot of burst and speed. The offensive line seemed dominant in pass protection, constantly giving Fields 5+ seconds to throw. It's good to see, but you also hope Fields will not expect that too often going forward. I do wish that some of the freshman got a bit more play time, Wilson was on the field a couple plays but did not record a catch, and other highly touted freshman Zach Harrison also saw 24 snaps without any counting stats to his name. I'm not sure Fields or Dobbins had anything they need to prove against FAU, so I'm not sure why they were in with 8 minute to go in the 4th when the Buckeyes were up 21. Lastly, OSU was notoriously bad at covering the spread last year, and failed again this week. Not really concerned, as the 2nd team defense let up the touchdown that tipped it, but you'd like to see OSU hit on some of these.

That's it for the recap of OSU's first game. For the too long, didn't read crowd, Fields numbers were fine, but was hardly tested, and the defense looked fantastic and much improved from 2018. Next up will be a good test against a pretty good Cincinnati team that should be a decent bit better defensively than FAU. Fields needs to keep improving, and not rest on his laurels this game, but I see no reason to assume he won't.