Ohio State football: Buckeyes take care of Penn State

Ohio State never really struggled with Penn State at any point in the night, winning the game 38-25.

Ohio State’s toughest game coming into this season was supposed to be tonight. Penn State was the consensus second-best team in the conference. Then they lost to IU. Beating Ohio State was already going to be a tall task, let alone trying to keep yourself from going 0-2.

They weren’t able to do that. Despite getting help from the referees all game long, Penn State wasn’t able to beat the Buckeyes. In fact, the only points the Nittany Lions scored in the first half were courtesy of the refs after a terrible roughing the passer penalty and a bizarre ending to the first half.

In that ending, the refs reviewed a Justin Fields kneel down and claimed that he did it with one second left despite the clock not starting on time. It was a weird ending to the half that allowed Penn State to score a field goal before the half ended.

In any case, the game was never in doubt. Justin Fields was dominant, going 28/34 for 318 yards and 4 touchdowns. He threw an absolute dime for a touchdown to Chris Olave, one of his two touchdown receptions on the game. The passing game was extremely sharp.

The running game was much improved as well. Master Teague ran for 110 yards and a touchdown on 23 carries. He got the majority of the carries over Trey Sermon, who only got 13. It was something the Buckeyes needed to work on, and they were a lot better.

Field goal kicking was a major issue though. Blake Haubeil missed his only kick of the game, which was just a 20 yarder. He was then replaced with Dominic DiMaccio. DiMaccio proceeded to also miss a 22-yard field goal. The Buckeyes can’t miss short field goals no matter who they play.

In any case, Ohio State played a very good game and was rewarded with a win. There are things they need to work on, but they are still very clearly the class of the Big Ten.