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Ohio State Plays Lights Out, Demolishes Penn State, 38-10
Ken via our good friends at Buckeye Battle Cry
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
This will be a brief, knee-jerk, morning after reaction to the game. We’ll have a couple more articles getting into opinion on this game over the next 2-3 days.
It was a beautiful evening for football in The Shoe last night as over 108,400 Buckeye fans showed up, most clad in black, for Ohio State’s first true test of the season. The Penn State Nittany Lions brought a capable quarterback, a potentially explosive running game and a top-notch defense to The Shoe. Despite OSU’s typical slow start, the Buckeyes rolled big in the 2nd and 4th quarters for a convincing 38-10 win. The win puts Ohio State’s record at (7-0, 3-0) and Penn State’s at (5-2, 2-1).
This was a strange game: the Ohio State defense allowed 195 net yards rushing (RB Saquon Barkley had 194) but limited the PSU passing game to a net of 120 yards. I guess against teams like this you pick your poison, and it seemed that Chris Ash-Luke Fickell chose well.
Offensively, this game had a familiar tone to it; 315 yards rushing lead by Ezekiel Elliott (157 yards, 1 TD, 5.7 YPC) and JT Barrett (102, 2, 9.3). JT also was 4-4 passing for 30 yards and 2 TD’s
Just a few bullet points, before I wander off to enjoy a beautiful autumn afternoon in western NY..
Next up, Ohio State travels to Piscataway, NJ to take on the Rutgers Scarlet Knights (3-3, 1-2), who were 55-52 winners over Indian on Saturday. Interestingly, Penn State also defeated Indiana the week previous to losing to Ohio State. The game has a kickoff scheduled for 8:00 pm. It’s the usual drill with television coverage; it will be seen on some combination of ABC, ESPN, ESPN2. Be sure to check local listings.
Be sure to check back here over the next couple days for more post PSU game opinion and Rutgers preview.
The post Ohio State Plays Lights Out, Demolishes Penn State, 38-10 appeared first on The Buckeye Battle Cry: Ohio State News and Commentary.
Continue reading...
Ken via our good friends at Buckeye Battle Cry
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
This will be a brief, knee-jerk, morning after reaction to the game. We’ll have a couple more articles getting into opinion on this game over the next 2-3 days.
It was a beautiful evening for football in The Shoe last night as over 108,400 Buckeye fans showed up, most clad in black, for Ohio State’s first true test of the season. The Penn State Nittany Lions brought a capable quarterback, a potentially explosive running game and a top-notch defense to The Shoe. Despite OSU’s typical slow start, the Buckeyes rolled big in the 2nd and 4th quarters for a convincing 38-10 win. The win puts Ohio State’s record at (7-0, 3-0) and Penn State’s at (5-2, 2-1).
This was a strange game: the Ohio State defense allowed 195 net yards rushing (RB Saquon Barkley had 194) but limited the PSU passing game to a net of 120 yards. I guess against teams like this you pick your poison, and it seemed that Chris Ash-Luke Fickell chose well.
Offensively, this game had a familiar tone to it; 315 yards rushing lead by Ezekiel Elliott (157 yards, 1 TD, 5.7 YPC) and JT Barrett (102, 2, 9.3). JT also was 4-4 passing for 30 yards and 2 TD’s
Just a few bullet points, before I wander off to enjoy a beautiful autumn afternoon in western NY..
- The Buckeyes broke, or at least severely damaged their pattern of falling behind early, then struggling before overcoming the deficit. PSU was spotted a 1st quarter FG, then it was pretty much all OSU for the next 3 hours.
- The Silver Bullets did give up three long plays; a 46 yard reception in PSU’s opening drive which led to FG,a 56 yard reception which led to their 3rd qtr TD and a 56 yard in the 4th qtr which led to nothing.
- The three plays above, of PSU’s 53 offensive plays, accounted for 1/3 of their total yards and all of their points. The Ohio State defense did a very nice job of containing the PSU offense.
- Curtis Samuel must have done something to piss off Urban, After barely making the box score last week, Curtis had 1 rushing play (1 yard) and no receptions.
- The Buckeyes cleaned up their mental game, but there is still work to be done. They were flagged for 5 penalties for 70 assessed yards. As you can see, although the number of penalties are down, OSU went for “quality”, averaging 14 yards per walk-off. For the 2nd consecutive game Ohio State had no turnovers! Against a hard-hitting defense like PSU, that’s impressive as hell.
- Moving on to the Red Zone offense, the Buckeyes had 6 trips to the RZ and scored 5 touchdowns and 1 field goal. So, for those keeping score at home, in the last two games, OSU has 11 TD’s and 1 FG in 12 RZ trips. Maybe this “Red Zone” designated quarterback scheme is working.
- In an interesting, somewhat related development, JT Barrett had a few more reps outside the red zone, particularly in the 2nd half. Will this be an indication of a line-up change for Ohio State? I guess we’ll have to tune in next week.
Next up, Ohio State travels to Piscataway, NJ to take on the Rutgers Scarlet Knights (3-3, 1-2), who were 55-52 winners over Indian on Saturday. Interestingly, Penn State also defeated Indiana the week previous to losing to Ohio State. The game has a kickoff scheduled for 8:00 pm. It’s the usual drill with television coverage; it will be seen on some combination of ABC, ESPN, ESPN2. Be sure to check local listings.
Be sure to check back here over the next couple days for more post PSU game opinion and Rutgers preview.
The post Ohio State Plays Lights Out, Demolishes Penn State, 38-10 appeared first on The Buckeye Battle Cry: Ohio State News and Commentary.
Continue reading...