Ohio State Football: Why the OSU Offense Will Not Be as Big a Concern as Feared

Ohio State fans might be feeling a sigh of relief seeing their team get a dominant 42-0 win over a clearly overmatched Akron team on Saturday.

And to get this out of the way now, it's only Akron. They might be the worst FBS team east of the Mississippi River this season.

But after the eight-month turmoil surrounding the football program, it was good to see the game finally being played.

And let's face it, Ohio State could've looked worse without a doubt. There have been infamous games against inferior competition that Ohio State should've won going away, including Cincinnati in 2002, Akron in 2007 and the biggest one of all, Ohio in 2008.

This time around, they left no doubt from the get-go.

And fans should feel surprisingly good about the offense, especially considering how crisp they were through most of the game.

With oft-criticized senior Joe Bauserman starting, the offense found a rhythm in the short passing game mixed with power running and play-action passes through most of the game.

At times, the Buckeyes went to an Oklahoma-style no-huddle type of attack that caught the defense off guard.

How often had Jim Tressel done that?

Also, Ohio State may have run more screens and end arounds in one game than Tressel has called in the past four or five seasons combined.

Could it be that Jim Bollman is not as vanilla as we all feared he would be? Or is new WR coach Stan Drayton, formerly at Florida, making that much of an influence on the offense?

Whatever the reason, the offense looked crisp but not perfect. Players were ready to make plays, and for the most part, they did that. 

The offense moved the ball very well and was pretty consistent throughout most of the game.

And it seemed that there was more of an authoritative effort on offense than we've seen in past seasons.

This is not to say that Jim Tressel was handcuffing the OSU offense for the past 10 years, but the offense played with a sense of urgency that you almost never got with Tressel.

Hopefully, this becomes the norm and not an aberration, and with Jordan Hall and (maybe) Jaamal Berry coming back, OSU's offense gets back some of the weapons that make it much more dangerous.

And if every skill player can make the type of impact on a game that Evan Spencer's incredible one-handed catch had, this offense might be better than we all thought.

That's without Braxton Miller starting. 

If he starts and continues to show flashes of what he can be, this offense can be downright scary.

And considering how potentially spectacular this defense can be, all the offense needs to do is be solid, and Ohio State can play for a Big Ten title pending the eligibility ruling from the NCAA.

If the offense can be lethal, this could be the team nobody wants to face at the end of the season.

For more college football news and updates, follow me on Twitter @bielik_tim.