Ohio State's Offense Generates Headlines, Breaks Records but the Buckeyes' Defense is Also Among the Nation's Best

On the first drive of Saturday's game between Rutgers and Ohio State, the Scarlet Knights moved swiftly and efficiently down the field into Buckeyes' territory. 

That was the last time they would get there all afternoon.

Yes, Rutgers is arguably the Big Ten's worst team, but this Ohio State defense is fast, suffocating, and violent and it showed once again in Saturday's 58-0 blowout victory. The Buckeyes are among the nation's elite on that side of the ball.

“I think any time you can shut people out in major college football it’s a big thing," co-defensive coordinator Greg Schiano said afterward. "You never can make light of it; that’s hard to do. It’s hard to play 60 minutes and — one mistake against Division I football players, they score a touchdown. You enjoy [shutouts] when you can get them.”

Ohio State will certainly enjoy this one.

Rutgers ran just three plays in opposing territory the entire game. All three of those came on that very first drive of the game. The total offensive numbers were not pretty for the Scarlet Knights: 116 total yards on 54 plays. Rutgers quarterback Chris Laviano finished the game 3-for-12 passing. He was replaced by Tylin Oden, who was 0-for-4 through the air.

The game was over at halftime when Ohio State led 30-0, but the Buckeyes limited the Scarlet Knights to just 23 yards of offense in the second half.

It's likely Rutgers head coach Chris Ash, who spent the last two years as Ohio State's defensive coordinator, had quite a few flashbacks as he watched his former team wreak havoc on his current one.

"I thought our defense just smothered them," Buckeyes head coach Urban Meyer said. "I feel our defense all over the field. Even when they do get a play, they're not usually solo tackles, usually a few people getting hats on them."

All of this came on a day where the offense generated a lot of the headlines. Ohio State quarterback J.T. Barrett threw four touchdown passes and is now the school record holder for career touchdown tosses and will only further the gap between him and Bobby Hoying. There were 12 different receivers who caught balls in the game. Three different players — Terry McLaurin, Parris Campbell and Johnnie Dixon — scored their first-career touchdowns.

They're all great stories and deserve to be told, but so does the one about this Ohio State defense.

It's not just the performance against Rutgers that makes the Buckeyes' defense so impressive. Again, it's Rutgers. This is more about a unit that has been dominant now for through four games — a quarter of the season.

Ohio State is allowing just 9.3 points per game on the year. Opponents are only gaining an average of 237.8 yards per game. The Buckeyes have scored four touchdowns on the season and only surrendered two on defense.

Ohio State is still the only team in FBS to have not yet allowed a rushing touchdown yet this season.

When Chris Worley was asked postgame if the defense views itself as dominant or even talks about it, the Buckeyes' starting linebacker simply swept the notion to the side.

“Not really," he said. "But it’s going to come with the way that we play. As long as we keep stopping people, those conversations are going to come up for debate.

"We don’t really try to focus on anything like that and as long as we take care of part of it then everything will take care of itself.”

But perhaps people should start talking a bit more about Ohio State's defense. 

Right now, it's every bit as scary as the Buckeyes' offense.