My Thoughts.....Western Kentucky

 

The Ohio State Buckeyes dominated from start to finish on both sides of the ball in putting away the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers 63-10.  A 35-point second quarter featuring 294 yards of total offense enabled the Buckeyes to pull away and take a 42-10 lead into halftime.  Marvin Harrison Jr. had five grabs for 126 yards, including a career-long 75-yard touchdown.  Cade Stover is turning to one of the most versatile tight ends in the league; he also had five catches for 90 yards.  Emeka Egbuka had two touchdown grabs out of his four catches and Carnell Tate caught the first TD pass of his career in the fourth quarter.  Kyle McCord, with the exception of losing a fumble when sacked, was almost perfect, going 19 of 23 for 318 yards and three touchdowns.  TreVeyon Henderson led the way on the ground, getting 88 yards and two scores, averaging over 6.7 yards per carry.  DeaMonte Trayanum got quite a bit of action, busting loose for a 40-yard TD run, showing some explosiveness.  The second quarter was the second-highest scoring quarter in 73 years.

            The defense recorded two scores, on a fumble recovery in the end zone by Tyleik Williams and a pick-six by Jermaine Matthews Jr. for the final score of the game.  Thus far, the 20 total points the defense has given up in their first three games are the fewest since the first three games of the 1975 season, since Ohio State held Michigan State, Penn State, and North Carolina to 16 combined points.  Mitchell Melton collected the first sack by a DE this season.  Tommy Eichenberg, as usual, was the leader on defense, collecting 10 tackles.  They got to WKU quarterback Autin Reed twice for sacks, which wasn’t bad considering Reed was doing a lot of three-step drops and getting rid of the ball quickly on most of his passes.  Steele Chambers and Josh Proctor also had outstanding games.  Chambers recorded eight stops, one pass break up and a tackle for loss, while Proctor broke up two passes, including one on fourth down. 

            The complete game put forth on both sides of the ball comes at an ideal time as the much-anticipated trip to South Bend is next.  We’ll see if this momentum continues next week.