My Thoughts.....Rutgers

                           As expected, the game against Rutgers wasn’t much of a contest as Ohio State pulled away in the second quarter enroute to a 58-0 pasting of Rutgers on Homecoming.  The Buckeyes dominated virtually every statistical category, most notably posting a 669-116 advantage in total yards, in a game in which the Rutgers offense ran exactly three plays in Ohio State territory.  The win improved Ohio State to a perfect 4-0 on the young season, moved Urban Meyer to 15-0 in October games at OSU and the Buckeyes remained the only FBS team yet to allow a rushing touchdown this season. 

 

With a second-quarter touchdown pass to Marcus Baugh, quarterback J.T. Barrett moved past Bobby Hoying to become Ohio State's all-time leader in touchdown passes. Hoying's old record was 57, and after Barrett's four-touchdown day, the redshirt junior currently has 59 career touchdown passes.

I saw an offensive line dominate a Rutgers front seven that had helped the Scarlet Knights have the fourth-ranked defense in the conference.  Instead, the Ohio State offense shredded the Scarlet Knights, especially on the ground, racking up 410 rushing yards while affording J.T. Barrett plenty of time to shred the Rutgers secondary.  I noticed how the young offensive line continued to improve; Michael Jordan had a standout game opening up holes for Mike Weber and RG Billy Price played better than I had seen him play all year.  Isaiah Price also continues to improve in his new role at RT.  This offensive line is getting better every game and, as long as nobody up front has to miss more than one game with an injury, this offensive line will be one of the best in the conference.  After the slow start in the first quarter, J.T. Barrett and Mike Weber put the pedal down in the second quarter and the rest of the offense followed suit.  I’ve been watching and waiting for Mike Weber to break a long run.  Through his first three games, it seemed like once a quarter Mike Weber was brought down by a shoe-string tackle on what looked like it would be a long touchdown run.  Weber busted off two impressive runs against Rutgers.  His first long run came in the first quarter. Weber found a hole in the middle and came face-to-face with a safety whom he promptly juked out with a quick jump cut. Weber then exploded to the 22-yard-line where he was forced out of bounds.  He got a 46-yard touchdown run in the third quarter and finished with 144 yards, giving him his third 100-yard game this season.  I also liked how J.T. Barrett spread the ball around in the passing game.  No less than twelve Buckeyes hauled in receptions, from Barrett and his backup Joe Burrow, led by Curtis Samuel with seven.  Newcomers Alex Stump and Benjamin Victor saw their first action and each hauled in a reception.

The “ball-hawking” secondary hawked no interceptions this week, but their coverage was smothering, which opened the door for the folks in the trenches to be appreciated.  Freshman Nick Bosa played the bulk of the second half and recorded four tackles, nearly doubling his season total, as well as one sack.  Michael Hill played well, but the play of his backup Robert Landers, really grabbed my attention.  For his part, Landers logged two TFL, one a sack on a 2nd and 8 play in the 1st quarter leading to a Rutgers punt and two series later he made a spectacular play on 2nd and 11, bull rushing into the Rutgers backfield before making a quick move to bring down Rutgers quarterback Chris Laviano for a 1-yard loss.  What really amazed me was the fact the Scarlet Knights had three completions on their first drive and did not have another the rest of the game.   Laviano finished his day just 3-of-12 for 33 yards before yielding to true freshman Tylin Oden in the third quarter. Oden did not complete any of his four attempts. They combined to get sacked three times. The Scarlet Knights did not break the 100-yard total yardage mark until early in the fourth quarter and Ohio State led 51-0.

Obviously, there will be much tougher tests in the B1G conference coming up, but this team, particularly the offensive and defensive lines, wasted no time and did what they were supposed to do against an outmanned opponent.