Ohio State football vs. Indiana: Defense grades

Ohio State played very good defense in the first half of their 42-35 win over Indiana and very bad defense in the second half.

Ohio State played their toughest game of the season on Saturday when they played Indiana. The first half of the game was very good for the Ohio State defense as they only allowed 7 points in that time period. The problem is that there are two halves in the game.

In that second half, the Buckeyes allowed 28 points and got burned consistently. It was such a bad effort that they almost ended up losing the game. It’s something that was extremely hard to watch. Here is how each unit graded out.

Even if it didn’t look like it, the defensive line was able to push the pocket on Michael Penix Jr. While Jonathon Cooper got the only sack of the game for the defensive line, they were still able to make Penix Jr. uncomfortable. It didn’t matter a ton, but I’ll get to that later.

In the running game, the defensive line was stellar. IU actually finished the game with negative rushing yards. They had 16 carries as a team and -1 yards. This forced Indiana to be one-dimensional, which again, didn’t really matter in the end.

Pete Werner led the team with 8 tackles and had a sack. Baron Browning also had 8 tackles. Tuf Borland was also good in the passing game. He finished the game with 3 tackles and a tackle for loss. They weren’t too bad in pass coverage though, which can’t be said for the last unit…

This was an absolute mess of a game by the Ohio State secondary. There was not a single defensive back that played even a little well today. Every single one of them got burned at some point today. They allowed Penix Jr. to throw for 491 yards and 5 touchdowns.

Shaun Wade did have a pick-six and that is the only reason why the secondary doesn’t get an F. Sevyn Banks got beat twice deep and only had one tackle. Marcus Hooker was supposed to be deep safety and yet was constantly beat deep despite lining up 12 yards deep.

It’s clear that the secondary is something that could hold this team back against an elite team. The Buckeyes have to fix this problem if they want to win a National Championship. It is the single biggest problem on this team besides staying safe from COVID.