David Braun knew what he was up against ahead of going into the Ohio State game.
Leading up to the game at Wrigley Field, the Northwestern head coach could see just how good the Buckeyes are, both in terms of their players and their coaches, just from watching film while prepping for the matchup.
"A very talented football team. A very deep football team," he said this past week. "It shows up on offense, defense and special teams. Very well coached in all three phases and clearly a team that is on a mission. I mean, you can just see the way that they play, the way that they play together, the way that they battle. Talented, well coached and a team that's on a mission."
All of that seemed to come to fruition in Ohio State's 31-7 win over Northwestern on Saturday, as the Buckeyes took a little while to get going but then dominated throughout the rest of the game once they did.
While Will Howard threw for 247 yards and two touchdowns, his 63% completion rate was his lowest since the season opener, when the quarterback only completed 60% of his passes against Akron. Braun was proud of the way his defensive backs played against such a good group of Buckeye wide receivers.
"If this isn't some sort of confidence boost against one of the best wide receiving corps you're gonna see, or may ever see, I don't know what's going to give you that extra shot of confidence."
Howard finished with five passes thrown more than 20 yards downfield. While he only completed two of those, he showed enough of a downfield threat that it opened up the running game for Ohio State.
The Buckeyes combined to run for 173 yards on 33 carries, led by Quinshon Judkins (15 carries, 73 yards, two touchdowns) and TreVeyon Henderson (11 carries, 74 yards). While OSU averaged 5.2 yards per carry in the game, its rushing attack dominated even more in the second half.
In the first half Ohio State had 15 carries for 55 yards (3.4 yards per carry). In the final two quarters, the Buckeyes totaled 17 carries for 118 yards (6.9 yards per carry). Part of that was due to Judkins and Henderson staying fresh, but OSU's consistent ability to throw the ball downfield paired with wearing down Northwestern's defensive front contributed to that as well, which Braun recognized.
"Some of it had to do with the explosive passing plays that were showing up. ... The passing game is getting going for these guys and we wanted to play a little bit more shell defense. At some point, if you're going to play a bunch of two-high structure with an offensive line and backs like Ohio State, they're going to have the ability to start leaning on you a little bit."
After Northwestern's first two drives consisted of 24 plays, 151 yards and took 12:26 off the clock, including a touchdown on its second drive to take an early 7-0 lead, OSU settled in and was able to put plenty of pressure on Northwestern quarterback Jack Lausch and the rest of the backfield.
In all, the Buckeyes had four sacks and six tackles for loss, led by Sonny Styles' two sacks. That said, Jack Sawyer and J.T. Tuimoloau were consistently applying pressure on the Wildcats, and Braun had nothing but praise for that duo.
"They were really aggressive. There was a lot of pressure. ... Our two offensive tackles going up against a couple of the best defensive ends we're going to see."
