Ohio State Football: Buckeyes continue where they left off
With the Ohio State football team coming off a bye week it wouldn’t have been a surprise if it took some time to get back in a groove, but that wasn’t the case.
There is no doubt the Ohio State football team played as well as anybody in the country the first half of the schedule. The Buckeyes began the second half of the season where they left off. They scored with less than five minutes gone in the first quarter and never looked back on the way to a 52-3 victory.
Ryan Day had his team playing the same old school football in the win over the Northwestern Wildcats. There was a heavy emphasis on the running game with an efficient passing attack and the Silver Bullets were flying around on defense.
Ohio State rushed for 279 yards on 37 carries a 7.5 yards per carry average. The Buckeyes completed 19-26 passes (73 percent completion percentage) for 201 yards and 5 touchdowns. Justin Fields was 18-23 (78 percent) and 4 scores.
The run pass ratio was 58-42 percent.
The first half of the season Ohio State averaged 288.5 yards and 246 through the air. The run pass ratio was 54-46 percent.
On defense the Buckeyes allowed 157 yards on the ground but that was on 47 carries 3.3 yard per carry average). Ohio State absolutely shut down Northwestern’s passing attack. The Wildcat quarterbacks were 6-21 for 42 yards and two interceptions.
The Buckeye defense was only allowing 234 yards per game, No. 2 in the country, so only giving up 199 yards improved that average. Scoring averages on both sides of the ball improved as well with the 52-3 victory.
Ohio State was 4th in the country in both scoring average (49.3) and points per game allowed (8.8).
Here are rushing and receiving totals of note.
J.K. Dobbins rushed 18 times for 126 yards and a score. Master Teague carried the ball 7 times for 96 yards and a score and Marcus Crowley rushed twice for 53 yards.
Chris Olave continues to impress as he had 5 receptions for 60 yards and two touchdowns. Austin Mack caught 4 passes for 50 yards and a score, Dobbins had 3 catches for 30 yards with a score and Garrett Wilson’s stats were 3-28. Jeremy Ruckert also caught a TD pass.
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It was a great start to the second half of the season for the Ohio State football team. Now for the big game next week. You know the Wisconsin Badgers will be in a bad mood after their loss today.