LINCOLN, Neb. -- Billy Price can't touch it or see it, or put some kind of nice number on it that makes it easy for Ohio State fans to quantify. But he can sense it.

Maybe that's part of what makes the progress of the Buckeyes' offense difficult to grasp. Ohio State fans are hesitant to grab that progress, or embrace it as anything more than stat-padding against bad teams, because we've seen this movie before. It ends with disappointment.

Not this time ... maybe?

Ohio State waxed Nebraska on Saturday night, made the Cornhuskers a punchline while laying down a blowout uncommon in hallowed Memorial Stadium. Nebraska got embarrassed. Partly because it's a program going through a bit of a rough patch. It's Armageddon if you ask Nebraska fans. It's also because Ohio State is on a roll unlike anything we've seen since 2014, and the Huskers were just the next team in its path.

Another game of 500 yards (five straight), another game of 50-plus points (four straight), 41 first downs -- the Buckeyes continued laying waste to inferior opponents.

But unlike last year, when back-to-back 62-3 wins in November were just a blip and nothing resembling actual offensive progress for a team still on a College Football Playoff path, this feels different to the players and coaches putting up these ridiculous numbers. And it's because of the two new faces in charge of orchestrating the offense.

Want something that tells you that this hot streak is real, tangible progress? Look to offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson and co-coordinator Ryan Day.

"I really, truly think the dynamics of the offensive staff have been the reasons why guys are flying around so much," Price said. "I think the biggest thing is making sure we're aggressive. The philosophies and the ideas that our offensive coaching staff believes in, I think that's probably the biggest thing."

Urban Meyer has allowed Wilson and Day to bring some new concepts to the offense. That actually is a tangible enhancement. If you can't see that, you're not paying attention. Successful passing packages, some new alignments for old plays, and tempo unlike anything we've seen from Meyer's offense before have been the hallmarks.

But this roll, and what makes Ohio State so confident that it has the offense needed to beat Penn State in two weeks, goes beyond Xs and Os. There's a rhythm.

Price says you need only watch the offensive line to sense that. See them firing off the ball with ferocity, and know that Ohio State is having its way offensively. This team is feeding off a play-calling setup between Meyer, Wilson and Day that's humming right now.

"They're good," Meyer said. "The communication is very good. I've done this for so long, I've had several different coordinators, and it's very smooth. I think they feed off each other, they're excellent coaches and they're very familiar with our personnel now."

The best word to describe the offense in 2015 and 2016 was dysfunctional. This current setup is anything but.

In 2015 they couldn't figure out the play-calling structure between Meyer, Tim Beck and Ed Warinner to the point that it was unclear for awhile who was actually calling the plays. Warinner, who's been a solid offensive line coach in his career, was being pulled in too many directions. Beck seemed a little in over his head. The result was a clunky offense that never made use of the best collection of talent in the country.

The players changed some in 2016, the stop-and-start nature of the offense lingered. Whatever was happening between the offensive coaching triumvirate wasn't working, and trickling down to the players on the field. There was no flow, no confidence save for a hot start and that two-game stretch in November. The truth was those outbursts only masked real deficiencies, and never fixed them.

Fans area afraid to get on board with this five-game stretch since the loss to Oklahoma in week two, but the team is trying to tell you that this is actually different. More and more, the Buckeyes seem comfortable giving voice to that.

"It does (feel different)," Meyer said. "But I'm also cautiously optimistic about it. I think our quarterback is playing at a very high level. His confidence level is elite right now. We practice that way. That's the biggest thing. I like to see the tempo in practice. Our quarterback runs the show. The offensive line, I see them coming on. I see the receivers. It's a good time to be getting that feeling within the offense."

That feeling, pure sustained offensive dominance, hasn't been felt around Ohio State since 2014. The Buckeyes blasted Michigan and Notre Dame at the end of 2015, beat Oklahoma on the road last year, but that was still a run-heavy offense. We were just too blinded by the final scores to realize that it was a team with clear throwing issues.

J.T. Barrett threw five more touchdowns on Saturday night. His line since the loss to Oklahoma: 99 of 137 passing (72 percent); 1,351 yards; 18 touchdowns; no interceptions. This is the best he's played in three years.

That was always the benchmark. Wasn't it?

Wilson was labeled a genius. Day was labeled a quarterback guru who could fix Barrett. Barrett was labeled a changed player. Everything was supposed to be better, at 2014 levels, and then it wasn't. The win against Indiana was clunky for a half. The loss to Oklahoma was a disaster.

Now, progress.

"We reflect back to 2014 quite a bit," Barrett said. "But I think we're getting our own identity, something different than 2014. You hear Coach talk about great practices. I think that's building our confidence to go out here on Saturday and play well."

Are you willing to get on board with it?

It's OK if there's trepidation. Nobody likes getting let down, and that's what Ohio State has done the last two times it's played a game of any consequence. How are you, the fan, supposed to be confident that a game against Penn State with the Big Ten (and everything else) on the line will be different?

The Buckeyes are giving you permission to get excited, and permission to hold them to this standard moving forward.

They've admitted to short-comings against Oklahoma earlier this year:

"I think the Oklahoma game, we didn't mean to by design, we just got a little bit all over and didn't have a good week of practice trying to get into a rhythm and a flow," Wilson said last week. "Since then we've added a lot. We're not different, we're just focusing on different things."

And now they're telling you that they think they have it figured out.