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Ohio State Buckeyes coach Urban Meyer is obsessed with being multiple. "If I hear about a [recruit] with a multiple skill set," he told me recently, "I get on a plane." When you study the Buckeyes' offense this season, it's easy to see why. Meyer and Buckeyes offensive coordinator Tom Herman are doing a great job of utilizing their versatile offensive personnel in order to create mismatches, and it's fueling the success of a team that has rebounded very well since a bad Week 2 loss to Virginia Tech. In a joint article with Mel Kiper earlier this week, I wrote that the Buckeyes have a high ceiling and still have a shot at making the College Football Playoff if they win out and a few things break the right way for them. Let's take a look at the philosophy behind Ohio State's offensive approach, and the talented skill-position players that are making it work (it's one of the better groups in the country). Many of them are underclassmen but will be on the radar of NFL scouts before too long. The philosophyThe Buckeyes don't always go up-tempo, but they're almost always in the no-huddle and they'll purposely go several plays in a row -- sometimes a full series -- without substituting personnel. There are two reasons for this: 1. The offensive line loves when it can lean on a tired defensive line that hasn't been able to rotate in substitutes. 2. It allows OSU to exploit personnel mismatches.
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