I'll preface all of this with it was an early game in a hostile environment against a top 5 opponent who has an excellent shot of winning their conference and the national championship. That out of the way, the same issues we've had under Sark are still there. Offensive penalties specifically on the OL that hurt drives. Confounding red zone playcalling and execution that lead us to 0 points and take points off the board. Poor player execution when it matters.
I like Sark, I really do. My fear is he has a ceiling and we are seeing it. It's a similar ceiling that Mack had. He is a much better coach than Mack. I don't think we're going 0-5 against OU under him. But he has shortcomings that cost this team in games that matter. He is now what, 3-12 in top 10 matchups? We can never convert these high leverage games to our advantage outside of Alabama. It is worrisome that year after year the same problems creep in. He had all offseason to get ready for this game and the offense looked dreadfully behind last season. I do credit Ohio State for a great gameplan but we looked to break out constantly and never did. Run game was good. Passing was awful and unimaginative. No creativity. No balance. He didn't get to the TE until the 2nd half. He didn't motion much at all. He didn't run counters or misdirection. It was a vanilla offense that wasn't going to cut it against a team like Ohio State. I don't know what exactly the offensive game plan was other than don't make Arch f up and that didn't happen.
Is our season over, of course not. It's just disappointing that we're not able to pull ahead in these matchups. And now we have 3 straight weeks of games that make absolutely no difference other than getting Arch and the younger guys more experience. We won't know the measure of this team until Florida because the next 3 opponents are cannon fodder. My fear is we've hit a ceiling with Sark and we're going to need another VY type, like Mack did, to push us forward into anything great. Maybe Arch is that guy. He wasn't today and frankly he may never be. We've seen loads of talent at QB walk through that door and amount to not much in the postseason. It's tiring to smash our heads against the ceiling yet again. I want to break through. I want to win games like today. I want us to finally be the team everyone claims we're capable of. I'm just worried we're never getting that with Sark. He failed his team today. Now he needs to rebound and learn, yet again, for another stumble. Has he yet?