In front of a crowd of 108,423, the second-largest ever in
the ‘Shoe, Ohio State remained unbeaten and top-ranked by defeating the Penn
State Nittany Lions 38-10. Ohio State had a lot to play for against Penn State
after, for the most part, looking less than stellar, against their five
previous opponents. Penn State had a
respectable 5-1 record, 2-0 in Big Ten play, and looked to have made great
strides since that early loss to Temple.
J.T. Barrett appears to have
taken another step toward garnering the starting quarterback position. Playing the bulk of the second half, Barrett
racked up 102 yards on the ground, to go with Elliott’s 153. To have two 100-yard rushers against Penn
State’s defense (over 300 yards total) shows how Ohio State’s offensive line,
from the first quarter on, dominated a very good Penn State defensive
front. The big night for Elliott puts
him just 12 yards shy of back-to-back 1,000 yard seasons. At 988 yards in seven
games, Elliott is averaging 141 yards per game on 6.7 per carry. Assuming Elliott was to average that same 141
yards and the Buckeyes make it to the title game he would finish with 2,116
yards on the year. That total would surpass Eddie George's single-season school
record (1,927 in '95) and give him 4,156 for his career slotting behind only
Archie Griffin (5,589). But, the use of
Barrett and his maturation appears to have really awakened this offense. Since the plan to use him in the “red zone”
began against Maryland, the Buckeyes have completely turned it around, putting
points up the last 12 times in the red zone with 11 touchdowns. Cardale Jones started out slow and never
seemed to get into a rhythm. Even though
he was 9/15, I noticed at least four throws that were horrible; not even close
to the intended receiver, so we’ll see if that affects who Coach Meyer selects
as the starter against Rutgers on Saturday.
On paper, Ohio State's defense played a pretty
decent game Saturday against Penn State, holding the Nittany Lions to just 10
points and 315 yards of total offense. The Buckeyes did have one glaring
deficiency, though: an inability to stop Penn State freshman running back
Saquon Barkley. Barkley, who had missed
the Nittany Lions' two previous games due to injury, racked up 194 yards on the
ground on 26 carries, good for 7.5 yards per rush. He had several explosive
runs, most of which came to the outside where Ohio State had some difficulty
setting the edge. While the overall run
defense wasn't great, Ohio State's collective defensive effort on third downs
couldn't have been much better: The Buckeyes held Penn State to just 1 for
11 on third downs in the game. The Nittany Lions were also 0 for 2 on fourth
down. A huge part of that was Ohio State getting Penn State into passing downs.
When the Buckeyes knew a pass was coming, they were able to pin their ears back
and really get after Christian Hackenberg and made life extremely difficult. Ohio State recorded five sacks against the
Nittany Lions, as Adolphus Washington led the way with a pair. Joey Bosa also
had a huge game as he consistently applied pressure on Hackenberg all night
long. Bosa had his best game this season, garnering a season-high seven tackles
and TFLs (3.5). Despite Barkley having a
good game, nobody else on the Penn State offense held up their end of the deal,
due mainly to Hackenberg being under tremendous pressure all game long,
resulting in a paltry 120 yards through the air with 101 of those on two
throws.
I also have to note I saw punter Cameron
Johnston have perhaps his best game. On five punts, Johnston
dropped four inside the eight yard line and boomed the other 56 yards. Combined
with Ohio State's outstanding punt coverage team, his punts
yielded exactly zero return yards.
Compare that with Penn State’s awful punting. Four of their punts traveled less than 30
yards giving Ohio State favorable field position.
Ohio State has now won 20 consecutive games, 27 consecutive B1G
regular-season games, has now been ranked number one a total of 103 weeks
all-time (since 1936) which is more than any other school.
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