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Film Study: What Happened to the Buckeyes' Vertical Play-Action Game?

After leaning on a wildly successful vertical play-action game on the way to the first College Football Playoff championship, head coach Urban Meyer and the Ohio State offense seek to correct what ailed an inconsistent downfield passing attack in 2015.

During the final three games of the 2014 season (Wisconsin, Alabama, and Oregon), the Buckeye offense ran a masterful combination of Meyer’s signature tight zone/gap-scheme run game and vertical play-action attack to the tune of 143 combined points (47.6 point per game) against college football’s toughest competition. Simply put, opposing defenses had no answer to the eventual champion’s vertical play-action pass game run off a dominant run game.