Ohio State Football: Buckeyes pass latest test against Rutgers

The Ohio State football team continued to play their brand of ball against Rutgers. On both sides of the ball, the Buckeyes dominated the game.

The Ohio State football team answered more questions with their 52-3 win over Rutgers in week two. Many expected the offense to perform well last week but wondered how it would do against better competition. The offense continued to roll in the win over Rutgers.

Dwayne Haskins Jr. continued to play confidently inside the pocket. Rutgers’ defense is no cupcake, but the sheer size that OSU’s O line possesses bought precious seconds for Haskins to play his game.

Just check out the numbers he and other offensive players put up as a result of the outstanding line play, as reported by ESPN.com.

Haskins was 20-23 passing for 223 yards and threw four touchdown passes without tossing a pick. He displayed great accuracy on deep passes both between and outside the hashes.

Receivers Johnnie Dixon and Paris Campbell saw their share of the offensive wealth. The two combined for nine receptions, three touchdowns and 153 yards.

The two-headed rushing game of JK Dobbins and Mike Weber was rolling as well. Dobbins saw the greater production with 73 yards on 12 carries. He also scored a touchdown and had 18 yards on two receptions.

Tate Martell saw plenty of playing time with the lead Ohio State stacked up. He brings a different look to the offense, and opens up more opportunities with RPO.

Early in the second quarter, Martell rocketed a 51 yard pass to Terry McLaurin for a touchdown. He showed strong patience and stepped up into a collapsing pocket on the highlight-reel play.

Martell was 10/10 passing for 121 yards and rushed eight times for a team leading 95 yards.

Martell played all of the fourth quarter, which will help in the development of the red-shirt freshman. It would not be surprising to see him featured more often when Urban Myer returns because he represents a style of play that Urban has been known to favor.

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Defensively, the team showed improvements from last week. Specifically in the defensive back field, as over-committing and poor reads hurt the Buckeyes against Oregon State.

They were able to slow down an impressive run game that Rutgers deploys. OSU limited their backs to 87 yards. Rutgers collected only 134 total yards on the day.

The defensive line led by Nick Bosa spent much of the game chasing Rutgers’ quarterbacks. That pressure contributed to the two interceptions the Bucks came away with and the combined 11 for 30 passing for 65 yards the Rutgers’ Quarterbacks recorded.

Ohio State will play TCU next week which will be the final game before the team will be joined by Urban Myer on the sideline.

Even though the Buckeyes are playing well, expect them to be even better when Urban comes back. That should be a frightening thought for the rest of the teams in the Big Ten.