Ryan Day gave up playcalling two years ago and gave Brian Hartline a shot. They really struggled, that’s why he brought in Kelly. I chuckle when I think of what would’ve become of Ohio State if Bill Obrien never got offered the Boston College job. That’s a fun alt history.
The Sark playcalling conundrum is fascinating. Sark is a very emotional playcaller and that’s what makes him great. He uses not only his scheme stuff but he relies on his relationships with his players and his knowledge of what they are confident in(very baseball-like). He’s mentioned this being a big part of his philosophy and he said that it was the main reason why he made PK come down from the press box after his 1st season. All that being said, the 3rd quarter stuff has got to get fixed because it’s unacceptable to be as bad as we were. We never scored more than 7 points in the 3rd quarter against a P5 opponent, yet we tripled our opponents in 3rd quarter yards lmao. It makes no sense.
As far as the redzone stuff is concerned, Sark has got to have a plus run game or he becomes a prisoner to his creativity. The Bama and SC offenses were historically elite in the redzone because they had backs who could do it on their own. We were great in years one and two with Bijan and we’ve fallen off since. I think simply that without an elite back, Sark just has some serious Redzone demons. His redzone struggles cost 2019 Bama vs LSU, Atlanta as OC in the playoffs on a 4th and 1, and at Texas he threw a quick screen on 4th and an inch to Xavier Worthy in Dallas and obviously the semifinal endings in back to back years. I don’t think it has to do with him being the HC I think it’s just who he is.