Two weeks down, six to go.
Ohio State just keeps chugging along, moving to 2-0 this weekend after hitting the road for a 38-25 win at Penn State. The 13-point victory kept the Buckeyes ranked No. 3 in the Associated Press top-25 poll, allowed them to maintain a spotless resume and certainly will be brought up by the College Football Playoff committee when it begins slotting teams in a few weeks.
Let’s get into this week’s stock report.
Stock Up
Justin Fields’ Candidacy As Ohio State’s Best Quarterback Ever
Before the season, Eleven Warriors ran a reader poll to determine the Four Kings of Ohio State’s quarterback. To those who missed it: We had all of you vote on the greatest quarterbacks in program history, trying to determine the top four. Simple rules.
Justin Fields, despite his Heisman Trophy finalist finish last year, finished eighth in the voting behind Troy Smith, J.T. Barrett, Rex Kern, Les Horvath, Dwayne Haskins, Craig Krenzel and Art Schlichter. Everybody has their own way to vote and had to decide what mattered most to them. Fields, though, largely because of his one-year sample size and lack of a national championship trophy or Heisman Trophy, hadn’t done enough to cement himself among in the minds of Ohio State fans.
I have an inkling that if we redo that vote in a few months, it would look quite a bit different.
Fields was nearly unstoppable in 2019 with 41 touchdown passes and three interceptions, yet he has taken his game up a notch in his second year as a starter. Against Penn State, the star junior quarterback went 28-for-34 for 318 yards and four touchdown passes without any turnovers. Through two games, he has now completed 87.3 percent of his passes.
Chris Olave is getting in on the fun. pic.twitter.com/odfaxNYNHs
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) November 1, 2020
Up next for Fields are Rutgers and Maryland. I'm setting the unofficial over/under for total incompletions between the two games at 5.5.
Inside linebackers and inside defensive linemen
In the offseason, the Buckeyes lost Malik Harrison, DaVon Hamilton, Robert Landers and Jashon Cornell up the middle. It was only natural to wonder how well their replacements would perform.
Wonder no more. We have an answer.
Tommy Togiai and Haskell Garrett have turned into disruptive defensive tackles who tear up the middle of opposing offensive lines, and Pete Werner and Tuf Borland have knifed through openings to make plays from their spots at linebacker. Togiai recorded his first three career sacks on Saturday, and Garrett added a pair of tackles while forcing Sean Clifford to run away from him and get sacked on one instance. Werner added six tackles and Borland had five tackles.
A lot to like from these four upperclassmen.
Literally Everything About This Passing Attack
The quarterback. The wide receivers. The offensive line. The coaches.
Name them all. They each deserve some credit.
Two games isn’t exactly an overwhelming sample size. Feel free to wait another month or so to make any sweeping judgments. But how, based on how the Buckeyes’ aerial attack has looked thus far, will any team figure out a way to stop it?
Fields so rarely misses his targets, and even when something breaks down he can make plays with his feet. Wilson and Olave look like college football’s best receiving duo, with the sophomore becoming a combination of a security blanket and a big-play threat and the junior remaining the primary downfield target. They totalled 18 receptions for 231 yards and two touchdowns on Saturday. A stout offensive line shut down a dangerous Penn State pass rush for the most part, too. Offensive tackles Thayer Munford and Nicholas Petit-Frere did their jobs exceptionally well for a second straight week. With all of the pieces coming together, Day’s creativity as a play-caller has shined, too.
What a toss
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) November 1, 2020
What an even better catch pic.twitter.com/wEGpsmGaaJ
Nicholas Petit-Frere
This weekend, as I wrote a few days ago, represented the biggest test of right tackle Nicholas Petit-Frere’s football life. Nothing he had experienced matched a start on the road versus a ranked Big Ten opponent with studs at defensive end.
Petit-Frere – along with left tackle Thayer Munford – played about as well as anybody on his sideline could have hoped. Neither Jayson Oweh nor Shaka Toney sacked Fields, and they combined for 1/2 of a tackle for loss.
At times, some wondered whether Petit-Frere would live up to the potential of being the No. 1 offensive line recruit in the 2018 cycle. Well, if the first two games of the season were any indication, he’s on his way to doing just that.
Jonathon Cooper
For years, Jonathon Cooper's leadership has been rightly lauded. Teammates pay attention to him and follow his every move. He never quite broke out, though, on the field. Entering this fall, he had secured 6.5 career sacks without ever topping 2.5 sacks in a single season.
Cooper's long-awaited breakthrough came on Saturday. Technically, he only had five tackles and 1/2 of a sack, but there was perhaps no defensive player more disruptive than the redshirt senior defensive end.
Jahan Dotson
This year, the Nittany Lions don’t have a particularly deep group of offensive playmakers. Jahan Dotson, though, qualifies as such.
Penn State’s No. 1 receiver scored three times on Saturday, reeling in eight catches for 144 yards. His back-to-back snags, culminating with a one-handed touchdown grab on Shaun Wade, will find themselves on highlight reels for years to come.
WHAT DID JAHAN DOTSON JUST DO?
— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) November 1, 2020
He went David Tyree then OBJ on back-to-back plays! @PennStateFBall narrows the deficit: pic.twitter.com/RDhHbpPAi1
Of note: He’s a junior. If he opts to leave for the NFL early, Ohio State might never have to deal with him again.
Stock Down
Defensive Backfield
Not too many things went wrong for the Buckeyes on Saturday. They handled their business throughout the evening and left for Columbus with a 13-point victory. An unequivocal success.
The secondary, however, didn't have its best day. Quarterback Sean Clifford didn't dice it up, but he managed to complete 18-of-30 passes for 281 yards and three touchdowns with Marcus Hooker picking him off once.
Ohio State's defensive backfield isn't an outright concern. That's far too strong of a characterization. But the young, relatively inexperienced group of players needs to learn and improve from its first true test of the season.
Kicking Field Goals Inside The 5-Yard Line With A Hurt Kicker
It seemed like a questionable idea at the time for Ryan Day to send out the field-goal unit on the 3-yard line when he had arguably college football's best offense at his disposal and a chance to score a demoralizing third touchdown in the first quarter to go up, 21-0. It got further called into question when the head coach revealed that Blake Haubeil had notified the coaches of pain in his groin before the game.
Haubeil, of course, missed the chip shot and got yanked from the game, and the Buckeyes floundered a bit to regain momentum.
Day, a typically aggressive decision-maker, didn't address why he opted for a field goal after the game. He's typically someone who doesn't like to second-guess decisions made in the flow of a game, but it's fair to wonder if he thinks he made the right call in retrospect.
Pumped-In Stadium Noise
Please. Make it stop.
If the people controlling the sound can't figure out how to make it sound at least somewhat normal, then using the artificial noise just isn't worth it.
Michigan
I understand why many Wolverine fans defend Jim Harbaugh. In five full seasons as Michigan's head coach, he has won 10 games three times and never won fewer than eight games in a season. He's been solid – if unspectacular – on the recruiting trail, too, where he has landed classes ranked No. 8, No. 5, No. 22, No. 8 and No. 14.
Unlike his predecessor, Rich Rodriguez, he hasn't been an abject failure who needs to get out of town as soon as possible. But based on what we've seen, how in the world is someone supposed to think Harbaugh will get over the hump?
On Saturday, Michigan lost, 27-24, at home to first-year coach Mel Tucker's Michigan State Spartans. Harbaugh's contract calls for him to get paid more than $8 million this year, yet he's in his sixth year and still can't figure out how to beat his rivals. Michigan's paying him like a coach who regularly competes for national championships, but he hasn't even won a division title yet. He has lost four bowl games in a row and has finished better than third in the Big Ten East just once.
At some point, one would have to imagine Michigan has to start looking around and wondering whether Harbaugh is actually its best option.
Penn State Players Who Don’t Like Getting Tackled Simultaneously
Tough luck.
And Joey Bosa used the RB to sack the QB. https://t.co/SNQioRkEeq
— Ohio State on BTN (@OhioStateOnBTN) November 1, 2020
