What's Wrong With Ohio State?

A funny thing has happened on the way to the ultra-talented Ohio State Buckeyes dazzling NFL scouts and casual fans alike in a flurry of sci-fi-grade highlights and must-see football.

Five games in, the Buckeyes aren't very good.

They certainly look good coming out of the tunnel, and the Braxton Miller spin move against Virginia Tech and Ezekiel Elliott's 274-yard rushing day last week will be on year-end highlight shows. But this team loaded with NFL prospects and five-star recruits has also yet to put together four smart, productive and complete quarters on either side of the ball.

Still, the defending national champions are unbeaten, and though the scoreboard says games with Northern Illinois and Indiana were in doubt in the final minutes, the Buckeyes have never truly been on the ropes. There have been some 'wow' moments—most of them were in the season opener—and though Elliott finally took over a game at Indiana, most of the team's flashes of brilliance or dominance have been followed a turnover, a near-miss and/or finger-pointing.

This loaded Ohio State team is playing opponents that aren't in the Buckeyes' zip code in terms of talent, and not only are those opponents giving Ohio State their best shot, but the Buckeyes have barely been able to give it back. After a summer of hyperbole and headlines, Ohio State is still searching not just for momentum, but an identity. Standards are rightly high in Urban Meyer's program—with a team this talented, they could hardly be any other way—but the Buckeyes haven't come close to meeting them.

For all the uncertainties, here, we do know this: Meyer won't lower those standards. He'll keep harping on efficiency; he knows last year the Buckeyes weren't really dangerous until the offensive line took a big step forward and Elliott started running through people. What's scary for Meyer is that the NFL still looms for more than half of his starting 22, that quarterback Cardale Jones still hasn't lost a game despite a sluggish start to the season, that the upcoming schedule allows Ohio State to half-sleepwalk, half-jog and still remain unbeaten and atop the polls.

What's scary for Ohio State's future opponents is that Meyer knows what the sum of the parts still has time to become.

"It's very close," Meyer said earlier this week. "I don't like to use the term 'great' because I don't know, it's all relative. Usually I don't say great because what's that mean?"

For Ohio State, it means the defense swarming and Jones hitting on the deep passes he's just missed so far; it means the young cornerbacks and wide receivers growing up on the job and Elliott continuing to do what he did last week. No, he's not going to run for 274 yards every week, but when he's at his best, it's hard to argue with one NFL team's director of college scouting's assessment of Elliott last winter.

"Zeke is a fucking bowling ball," he said.

And maybe the guy that gets Ohio State rolling.

The answer to what's been missing starts with who's been missing. The passing game misses Devin Smith, college football's most polished deep-ball receiver over the last several seasons and a second-round pick of the New York Jets last spring. Noah Brown, one of a bunch of blue-chip wide receiver recruits—and one Meyer really seemed to like—got hurt in training camp, and the Buckeyes last week lost the speedy Corey Smith, who was just a part-time receiver but could stretch the defense in addition to being a special teams playmaker. Smith was a little like Evan Spencer, who blocked and caught passes and played special teams so well for last year's Buckeyes that Meyer got choked up talking about him after season. Spencer was drafted by the Washington in the sixth round last spring.

Tom Herman left his job at offensive coordinator to become head coach at University of Houston, and though it seems a stretch to call Herman an offensive genius, he's legitimately a MENSA member and was Meyer's choice to call the plays when Meyer took over before the 2012 season. Meyer is credited as one of the godfathers of the spread offense, but he's always preferred a power offense that looks like a spread. Over Meyer's three years with Herman, the Buckeyes tinkered and evolved, and punched defenses in the mouth more than they threw over their heads.

Miller was a battering ram of a quarterback before he became a wide receiver/slotback. J.T. Barrett grew up so quickly under Meyer and Herman last season that he went from operating a limited playbook to tying the Big Ten's single-season touchdown record. When Jones had to replace Barrett in the stretch run he started stretching the field with Devin Smith, which set the stage for Elliott to hurt a lot of feelings. There is no real stylistic through-line, here—the Buckeyes had three differently effective quarterbacks, and played a of offense that suited each of them in turn.

"I think scheme's overrated," Meyer said. "I think competitive spirit, human spirit, and ability overrule all that. I think it's comical when I hear people say, 'He doesn't fit our system.' Well, change your system."

What Meyer has on hand now is enough talent to blend all his past offenses into one powerful, protean machine. If and when it clicks, the Buckeyes could play with the versatility and trickery that Meyer displayed in his big wins at Bowling Green and the precision with which his old Utah teams operated, powered by the raw speed and talent that his national championship teams at Florida used to overwhelm opponents. History says Meyer will get it right—the play-calling, the maximizing of strengths and the hiding of weaknesses, all of it. The schedule, starting with a hapless Maryland team this weekend, says there's time.

In Joey Bosa, Adolphus Washington, and Vonn Bell, the defense has three potential high NFL picks. The evolving offensive line is anchored by Taylor Decker, a potential first-rounder next spring. Like Bosa, Jalin Marshall and Dontre Wilson served one-game suspensions to start the year; they are players who can turn a small crease into a big gain. Jones is making his ninth career start this Saturday, and the former running backs being forced to learn wide receiver on the fly now have half a season worth of on the job training.

So far, though, timing and blocking struggles have led to the offense going without a touchdown pass in 16 trips inside the red zone and a third-down conversion rate that's a shade under 35 percent. An average of 34.4 points per game is nothing to sneeze at, but it's not in the top 40 nationally through this stage of the season. Which means it's not up to Meyer's standards.

"Two areas of strength in the past are not strengths right now," Meyer said. "We're hitting that really, really hard, and that's turnovers and that's red zone production. So those are two areas we're going to beat…because that's costing us a lot of [points]. You're getting 500-plus-yard days and that's not transitioning to what should happen in a game like that.

"I think college football teaches us all each week [that] you better show up and you'd better play each week. Everybody has scholarship players and they have good players. We certainly respect that around here. We're going to keep getting better."

Human nature says it's understandable that Ohio State played a little fat and happy through September. Meyer clearly believes it's too early to count these Buckeyes out, and he's probably right. If and when they wake up, all that preseason hyperbole could start seeming awfully realistic.