Game 4: Ohio State v Rutgers

GAME 4       OHIO STATE v RUTGERS

October 1, 2016                                  Ohio Stadium              Columbus, OH

Rutgers Scarlet Knights

Location: Piscataway, NJ

Stadium: High Point Solutions Stadium (52,454)

Coach: Chris Ash (1^st year): 2-2 at Rutgers/overall, 0-1 v B1G, 0-0 v OSU

Series: OSU 2, Rutgers 0

Last Meeting: 10/24/2015: OSU 49, Rutgers 7

2015 Rutgers Scarlet Knights (4-8)(1-7)                     2015 Ohio State Buckeyes (12-1)(7-1)

63        Norfolk State               13                                42        at Virginia Tech          24

34        Washington State         37                                38        Hawaii                          0

  3        at Penn State               28                                20        Northern Illinois          13

27        Kansas                        14                                38        Western Michigan      12

24        Michigan State            31                                34        at Indiana                    27

55        at Indiana                    52                                49        Maryland                    28

  7        Ohio State                   49                                38        Penn State                 10

10        at Wisconsin                48                                49        at Rutgers                     7

16        at Michigan                 49                                28        Minnesota                   14

14        Nebraska                     31                                28        at Illinois                      3

31        at Army                       21                                14        Michigan State            17

41        Maryland                    46                                42        at Michigan                 13

                                                                                   44        Notre Dame               28

                                                                                                (Fiesta Bowl)

2016 Rutgers Scarlet Knights (2-2)(0-1)                     2016 Ohio State Buckeyes (3-0)

13        at Washington              48                                77        Bowling Green           10

52        Howard                       14                                48        Tulsa                           3

37        New Mexico                28                                45        at Oklahoma             24

  7        Iowa                            14                                           

O1       at Ohio State                                                               Rutgers

O8       Michigan                                                                     Indiana

O15     Illinois                                                                          at Wisconsin

O22     at Minnesota                                                               at Penn State

O29                                                                                         Northwestern

N5        Indiana                                                                        Nebraska

N12      at Michigan State                                                       at Maryland

N19      Penn State                                                                   at Michigan State

N26      at Maryland                                                                Michigan

The Buckeyes will face nine B1G Conference opponents without letup starting with Saturday’s game against Rutgers and first-year coach Chris Ash.  The Buckeyes will come off the bye week hoping to see progression in the areas that were a concern during the first three weeks, including cutting down on the nearly 10 penalties per game they averaged in wins over Bowling Green, Tulsa, and Oklahoma.

RUTGERS OFFENSE v OHIO STATE DEFENSE: Rutgers quarterback Chris Laviano was in a battle for the starting position during the spring and was named the starter just in time for kickoff of Rutgers’ season-opening loss at Washington.  Laviano continues to show his arm strength and accuracy on the deep throws, already tossing two TD throws longer than 75 yards.  He also had his fifth career game with at least three touchdown passes in their win over Howard.  The Knights suffered a blow last week when their leading receiver Janarion Grant suffered a season-ending injury after hauling in a 76 yard scoring toss in their loss against Iowa.  However, freshman Jawuan Harris has shown a good blend of speed and sure hands, catching a 75-yard scoring reception against New Mexico and is fourth in the conference with 20.13 yards per catch.  On the other side of the line Harris, Laviano will have experienced senior WR Andre Patton, who has caught a TD pass in each of the last three games and has 812 receptions throughout his career, by far the most of any current Rutgers player.  John Tsimis appears to have been given the starting nod in Grant’s place.  Tsimis has seen action in Rutgers’ four previous games with one catch for 19 yards.  Also look for Laviano to try to go to reliable TE Nick Arcidiacono to try to counter Ohio State’s pass rush.  Arcidiacono has shown himself to have good hands and the short routes with seven receptions for 54 yards.  Coach Ash was hoping to improve the Rutgers running game this season and he has a good RB in junior Robert Martin, who leads the conference with 119.3 yards per game.  Martin has two 100-yard games already this year (New Mexico and Iowa) and his 80-yarder is the longest by a B1G player thus far this season.  A big key to Martin’s success has been the improved play of the Rutgers offensive line in the run game.  The right side of the Knights line features three seniors with a lot of playing time: center Derrick Nelson, RG Chris Muller, and RT J.J. Denman and that is where the Knights will try to run.  Junior LG Dorian Miller and sophomore LT Tariq Cole have also impressed Coach Ash with their performance so far this season. 

Rutgers has little hope of getting a sustained ground game going, but they will try to get four, five, or six yards on first down with a combination of runs behind their right side and the occasional pass to Martin out of the backfield.  Rutgers will need to get this production on first down to keep Ohio State’s front four and linebackers from getting in Laviano’s face when he drops back to throw.  If the Knights can’t average at least four yards on first down, any faint chance of sustained offense will be gone.

                                            QB Chris Laviano

RUTGERS DEFENSE v OHIO STATE OFFENSE: Ohio State’s offense comes in averaging 56 points per game and coming off thrashing Oklahoma’s decent defense.  Rutgers’ defensive line will need to make some plays on third down in particular to have a chance of keeping the game from getting away from them.  The Knights have a pair of good defensive linemen in seniors Darius Hamilton and Julian Pinnix-Odrick.  Hamilton was named to the preseason Outland Trophy watch list and leads the defensive line with 16 tackles against the run this season.  Pinnix-Odrick  has had a sack in each of the last three games to rank third in the conference and 16^th nationally.  Juniors Sebastian Joseph and Darnell Davis are at NT and DE respectively.  Joseph has 11 tackles and Davis 8 this year.  The young Rutgers linebacking corps figures to have their hands full, but sophomore Deonte Roberts has impressed the coaching staff with his play at the MLB position.  Roberts already has 23 stops and two tackles for loss.  His classmate, Trevor Morris is just behind Roberts with 21 tackles and a sack, while senior Greg Jones has chipped in 18 tackles and also has a sack to his credit.  The Rutgers secondary has a couple of ball hawks in sophomore FS Kiy Hester and senior SS Anthony Cioffi.  Hester leads the team in tackles with 26 and had a career high 11 tackles against Iowa.  Cioffi was third in the conference with four interceptions last year and he has a pick this year to go with his 17 tackles.  Sophomores Isaiah Wharton and Blessuan Austin will man the corner positions.  Austin comes into the game with 13 stops and a fumble recovery and Wharton with 14 tackles and an interception.  Both figure to be hard-pressed to try to contain Dontre Wilson and Curtis Samuel on plays to their side.

Rutgers will have to hope the most experienced part of their defense, the line, can get penetration enough to disrupt running lanes, putting the Buckeyes in second-and-long and third-and-long.  If they can, it gives them a better chance to contain Ohio State’s offense on third downs, get turnovers, and not wear down. If not, Ohio State’s offense will wear them down fairly quickly.

                                            DE Darius Hamilton

SPECIAL TEAMS: Junior kicker David Bonagura has already had a productive year for Rutgers, hitting on 6 of 7 field goal attempts with a long of 41.  Sophomore Michaal Cintron took over the punting chores in the first game and has a 38.6 average on his 25 punts thus far.

SUMMARY: Ohio State hopes to eliminate all the penalties incurred in the first three games while fine-tuning everything else.  The offense is humming along, outscoring the first three opponents 170-37 and the play of Ohio State’s young secondary has been a very pleasant surprise.

Don’t look for that to change against the Scarlet Knights.  Rutgers has an experienced quarterback in Laviano and Hamilton and Pinnix-Odrick are standout defensive linemen, but, as long as Ohio State shows up and does not look ahead, Rutgers simply does not have the speed or the experience to make this much of a game.

                                    OHIO STATE 52, RUTGERS 10