Ohio State racked up over 300 yards on the ground and enjoyed more red zone dominance as the Buckeyes trounced Penn State, 38-10, in front the second-largest crowd in school history.
While the offense was humming the defense gave up just 10 points and owned 3rd down but still gave up 194 yards on the ground to Saquon Barkley along with another handful of chunk plays.
The win improved Ohio State to 7-0 on the year and gives Urban Meyer his fourth career 20+ game winning streak, two of which have come in Columbus. It also kept 11W unbeaten on weekends we stage our annual charity tailgate and Gold Pants Social.
Before turning the page to focus on next week's night game against Rutgers here are Five Things from an easy victory over the Nits.
RUN EZE
Another day another 100+ yard rushing outing for Ezekiel Elliott as he tallied 153 yards on 27 carries extending his streak to 12 such games. While he didn't have one of those long scoring runs he's seemingly racked up at will, the junior had five chunk plays (runs of 10+ yards) with a touchdown as the Slobs wore down the Penn State front.
The big night for Zeke puts him just 12 yards shy of back-to-back 1,000 yard seasons. At 988 yards in seven games, Elliott is averaging 141 yards per outing on 6.7 per carry. Even more impressive, 62 percent of his yards have come after halftime on the strength of 8.0 yards per tote.
Currently ninth on OSU's all-time rushing list with 3,028 yards, Elliott has a legit shot to finish as high as second before he moves on to the next level.
Assuming Zeke were to average that same 141 yards and the Buckeyes make it to the title game he would finish with 2,116 yards on the year. That total would surpass Eddie George's single-season school record (1,927 in '95) and give him 4,156 for his career, behind only Archie Griffin (5,589) and comfortably ahead of George (3,768).
Enjoy Zeke while you can folks. He's an all-timer.
TIME AND CHANGE
Having lost his starting job to injury after Cardale Jones helped Ohio State capture the national title, J.T. Barrett has quietly gone about his business as a spot duty guy either in relief of Jones or as a red zone specialist.
Saturday night Barrett might have taken another step as he played the bulk of the second half totaling 11 carries for 102 yards and two touchdowns with another 30 yards passing, completing all four of his passes with two scores.
Is it time for Barrett to become the starter? I think yes. It doesn't mean Jones can't play under that scenario or even that he shouldn't but the evidence suggests the offense has a much better flow and tempo with J.T. at the controls not to mention the impact of having him orchestrate the various read and designed quarterback runs that Meyer loves.
If nothing else, Barrett has at least confirmed his red zone insertion is here to stay as Ohio State was a perfect 6-for-6 inside the 20 with five touchdowns. Since the plan was hatched against Maryland, the Buckeyes are an astounding 12-for-12 in the red zone with 11 touchdowns with Barrett at the helm.
For perspective, Ohio State was just 12-for-16 in the red zone over the first five games with a disappointing six touchdowns, giving them a 38 percent touchdown rate.
Jones again said all the right things, but after a 9-of-15 passing performance featuring at least four throws not even close to his intended target, it's feels like the time is now to make a change. Of course, Meyer knows more about football than any of us will ever know so we'll see what he has to say this week on the matter.
BAUSSIE
Cameron Johnston was in boss mode Saturday.
On five punts, the junior from Australia dropped four inside the 8-yard line and boomed the other 56 yards. As we've come to expect, his boots combined with Ohio State's ridiculous coverage team yielded exactly zero return yards.
After Ohio State went three-and-out to start the game Johnston flipped the field with the 56-yarder to the Penn State 23.
His second attempt sailed 45 yards and was fair caught at the Penn State 8. Later, after another three-and-out from Jones after Ohio State was gifted field position at the Lion 35, he eventually punted from the PSU 34 to the 2-yard line.
Up 21-10, his last two punts were downed at the PSU 8 and 4-yard lines, respectively.
To further illustrate Johnston's value, Penn State's two awful guys punted a combined seven times for a 35.9-yard average with just one downed inside the 20. Four PSU punts traveled 32 yards or less giving Ohio State favorable field position. Somewhere, Jim Tressel just gagged a little.
IN DEFENSE OF THE DEFENSE
Yes, it would be cool if the Silver Bullets would stop getting gashed via the run in addition to giving up a few big plays per game.
No doubt its frustrating to watch a freshman in Saquon Barkley (hat tip to him, btw) rip through the defense for 194 yards and see both Gareon Conley and Eli Apple get beat for big plays through the air (45 yards and 56 yards, respectively) but there was much to be pleased with last night as well.
The defensive line's pass rush was particularly solid posting four of the team's five sacks and six of its eight TFL.
Joey Bosa embarrassed his counterpart on multiple occasions, posting season-high results in tackles (7) and TFL (3.5) with a sack and a hurry. Adolphus Washington also set up shop in the Lion backfield posting a career-high two sacks with a forced fumble. Despite a cast on his right wrist Tommy Schutt notched a sack, Tyquan Lewis had three stops and Sam Hubbard jumped on a fumble.
Though the rushing yards yielded were painful, Penn State was rendered one-dimensional as Christian Hackenberg totaled only seven completions in 13 attempts for a paltry 120 yards with 101 of those coming on two throws.
The defense held PSU to 1/11 on 3rd down and 0/2 on 4th down and gave up just 315 total yards with 44% of those coming on the two scoring drives.
A WORD OF THANKS
As most of you know we held our 3rd annual Gold Pants Social on Friday night followed up by the Black Saturday Banger.
The Social was another great event thanks to Matt Finkes, Land-Grant Brewing, The Grill's Chop House and a host of former players who mixed it up with those in attendance.
Tom Cousineau was a first-time attendee and he was awesome as you'd think he'd be. Thanks to him, Finkes, Bobby Hoying, Dee Miller, Simon Fraser, Jay Richardson and others for coming out to mingle with fans of the program and 11W.
Saturday's Banger at Hampton's on King to support long-time partner DownSyndrome Achieves was a blast and raised a ton of money while allowing us to meet and hang out with many of you.
Seeing Michigan gag away the game to Sparty capping off the event was equally as fun as talking football with all of you and raising money for a worthy cause.
Thanks to Matt for allowing us to invade his establishment, the 11W hostesses for helping raise cash via raffles, all the volunteers organized by Mark Lewis, and of course, Steve Shoemaker for his continued partnership.
Hat tip to Ramzy for his continued vision especially in having to call an audible this year on location and again to all of you for your charitable spirit.
Let's do it again next year.
