MY THOUGHTS.....Marshall

 

The Ohio State offense had a relatively slow start against Marshall, trailing midway through the first quarter, before unleashing four straight touchdowns to take a 28-14 lead at the half.  Then, they outscored the Thundering Herd 21-0 in the second half to provide the game’s final margin. 

Big plays were the order of the day.  Their 569 yards of total offense included scoring plays of 86, 68, 53, and 40 yards.  Quinshon Judkins’ 86-yarder tied J.T. Barrett’s 86-yarder against Minnesota in 2014 as the third-longest rushing touchdown in Ohio State history and propelled him to 173 yards and another touchdown for the day.  TreVeyon Henderson picked up 76 yards and also scored twice.  For the first time in OSU history two backs averaged over ten yards per carry.  Quarterback Will Howard was deadly accurate, except for one bad throw into coverage resulting in a pick.  Howard completed 80 percent of his throws for 275 yards and long touchdowns to Emeka Egbuka and Jeremiah Smith.  Ohio State’s running game looked better than it did the first two games; the return of LG Donovan Jackson no doubt helped the offense to nine yards per carry.  The 280 rushing yards was the most racked up by Ohio State since they ran for 340 yards against Indiana in 2022.  Egbuka led the receivers with five catches for 117 yards, including his 68-yard touchdown grab.  Carnell Tate hauled in four for 64 yards and Jeremiah Smith simply torched the defense on his 53-yard catch-and-run to paydirt.

The defense looked a bit haphazard early on, allowing Marshall to drive the length of the field on their opening drive and they gave up a very questionable touchdown near the end of the first half when the officials awarded a touchdown to Marshall’s Elijah Metcalf when he definitely appeared to have his foot on the end line.  Nevertheless, the defense gave up 203 total yards to Marshall in the first half and Marshall quarterback Stone Earle at times, gave them fits as he unloaded the ball very quickly to negate the pass rush or took off upfield.  However, the second half was a different story.  The Buckeye defense limited the Herd to a mere 61 total yards and zero points.  In the second half, the Herd managed just four first downs and went only 1-for-7 on third downs.  Lathan  Ransome led thew way with eight tackles, including one for loss, while Sonny Styles turned in seven stops and Denzel Burke six.  However, there were no turnovers.  The special teams, particularly kickoffs, looked downright ugly.  Jayden Fielding was benched after booting three kickoffs out of bounds.  Austin Snyder took over the kicking duties from there and did an acceptable job, so it remains to be seen if Fielding will see the field next week. 

Speaking of next week, the Buckeyes go on the road for the first time up to East Lansing to take on Michigan State and hopefully the special teams’ issues can be ironed out.