(Inside Lacrosse Photo: Dave Anderson)

Most of the focus on the Ohio State offense this season has been centered around a pair of Canadian attackmen, senior Eric Fannell and freshman Tre Leclaire. Thus, the tendency has been to get caught up in some of their box inspired, 2-man actions that they will sometimes run.

However, getting too caught up on that aspect of their offense obscures what really separates it. Head coach Nick Myers and offensive coordinator Brad Ross have built one of the deepest, most versatile units in the country. What makes them so unique is the ability to mix and match personnel to fit the scheme they want to run on any particular possession. It is to most offenses what a build your own ice cream sundae bar is to a conventional dessert menu or what Build-A-Bear is to a traditional teddy bear.

Fannell and Leclaire have been the foundational scoops of ice cream on which the sundae is built, but there are a whole bunch of different options for toppings.

Ohio State will play as many as eight other players in meaningful roles on offense with a variety of different skill sets. Of those 10 players, there are four Canadians and six Americans, six righties and four lefties, and six who can play attack or midfield.

Thus, they have the potential to roll out a group with a bunch of American split dodging midfielders and run fairly traditional field lacrosse type offenses with a touch of Canadian finishing. Or play all four of their Canadians in a three righties and three lefties group to attack the middle of the field with box inspired wing picks. Or they can run attackmen out of the box to take defensive midfielders behind the cage and initiate out of invert sets. They can attack from up top, from the wings or from X either one on one or from the 2-man game.

They will run so many different groups at midfield and move guys around that there isn’t really a constant first and second midfield.

Colin Chell is usually the third attackman alongside Fannell and Leclaire and will often play at X in between those two, but is probably at his best playing inside as a finisher.

Last weekend against Duke he played midfield as the Buckeyes started Jack Jasinski at attack and Chell demonstrated his ability to create as a wing dodger against short stick defensive midfielders.

Whether they play them both at midfield as they have for most of the second half of the season or start Jasinski at attack like they did against Duke, Ohio State often relies on a big-little two man game with Jasinski and Lukas Buckley initiating from X. It is somewhat of a thunder and lightning combination with the smaller quicker Jasinski drawing a long pole and the more powerful Buckley bringing SSDMs behind.

Johnny Pearson is a big lefty shooter who can be a load to handle when he leans into his man as a dodger and often provides the mirror image spacing to Leclaire as an outside shooting threat. Since he is Canadian, people often think of him mostly as a 2-man game, pairs set type player and while he certainly do that, like Leclaire and Fannell, he is versatile enough to fit into just about anything that Ohio State wants to run.

Austin Shanks is a Canadian righty who isn’t the most explosive dodger, but has a slick stick as a finisher or running the 2-man game with Leclaire. He played a bigger role for them last year including a number of starts at attack, but has scored most of his damage this year on the man-up.

Tyler Pfister, JT Blubaugh and John Kelly fit more into the mold of what you think of as 2-handed American split dodging midfielders. With the injury to Ryan Terefenko during their 1st round win over Loyola, Kelly moved to SSDM to take his spot. These are the three players that allow Ohio State to be effective in the 5 around 1, triangle rotation type sets that are traditional American field lacrosse offenses despite all of their Canadian scorers. Often times that means putting Leclaire and Fannell in positions on the crease where teams either are sliding from them to pop off the crease and catch a throw back or roll back pass.

The more American 2-handed skill sets also work in the box style pair sets to draw slides and set up Leclaire and Fannell to finish.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that setting picks on the wing for Leclaire isn’t a significant part of their offense.

However, rather than being what defines this offense, that is better viewed as just one of the many ways that they can attack. Rather, it’s their ability to attack so many different ways from so many different places on the field with so many different players.