Before the rain came, Tulsa went toe-to-toe with Ohio State in Columbus.
With the Buckeye offense sputtering and only producing six points through 27 minutes, Malik Hooker snatched a pass intended for Keevan Lucas and glided 26 yards untouched to the end zone to extend Ohio State's lead to double digits. The Buckeyes didn't look back, especially after Marshon Lattimore picked Evans off with 40 seconds left until half and finished a house call of his own.
From there, the Buckeye offense made adjustments during an extended halftime to pound Tulsa's defense down repeatedly and win 48-3. Not quite the 776-yard outburst we saw against an overmatched Bowling Green squad a week earlier but enough for Urban Meyer's club to move to 2-0 before its date at Oklahoma next Saturday night.
Here are three key stats from Ohio State's second win in 2016.
6 Tulsa Turnovers
A no-brainer here. The Buckeyes won the turnover battle 6-1 and the budding stars on Luke Fickell's defense again showed a nose for finding the football. Hooker now has three picks on the year, trailed closely by Lattimore who grabbed half of Dane Evans' four interceptions. Gareon Conley added one for good measure late in the third quarter when the Buckeyes led 34-3.
Once the weather became difficult to navigate and Ohio State prevented Tulsa from establishing any sort of a ground game, the Golden Hurricane had no chance.
"The weather turns the way it does but they're a system to what they do," Fickell said. "They want to run the football and when you have the ability to stop the run and you make them have to do some other things, when the ball goes up, that's one of the best things our guys do. Have the ability to go get the ball."
85 Total Yards of Offense for Tulsa After 1st Quarter
Ohio State didn't do much to stop Evans and Co. in the first 15 minutes. The Golden Hurricane tallied seven first downs in the opening quarter in addition to 103 total yards but only had three points to show for it. A goal line stand ended Tulsa's best opportunity to score a touchdown with 6:01 left.
After that, Fickell's group tightened the screws and went to work. Tulsa managed just 85 total yards the rest of the game (just six rushing) and forced six turnovers. The Buckeyes flew around the field in a similar fashion as the torrential downpour that began just before halftime and the Golden Hurricane never scored again.
"We worked a lot of that during the offseason and we see the finished product coming out here on the field," middle linebacker Raekwon McMillan said. "All that work that we’ve put in over the summer is finally coming out on the field and it’s one of the things we’re sticking on and hopefully, we can keep it going."
Ohio State 18:52 Second Half Time of Possession
At halftime, both teams essentially had the ball for 15 minutes — The Buckeyes held a slight 15:01-14:59 time of possession advantage when they went to the locker room for what ended up being more than an hour.
With halftime adjustments in place, however, the Buckeyes ran for 170 yards in the second half and controlled the clock. Four touchdowns came on the ground with all those yards and Ohio State held Tulsa to just a 2-of-7 mark on third downs in the final 30 minutes. Couple that with the six turnovers and things got out of hand quickly.
Dane Evans finished 15-of-32 passing for just 127 yards and four interceptions while being sacked twice and fumbling once.
