Ohio State vs. Northwestern B1G Championship: Offensive grades

The Ohio State football team was able to win their fourth straight Big Ten Championship after beating 22-10 even though their offense wasn’t at their best.

Ohio State football won the Big Ten Championship today. That’s all that matters. They were able to get it done despite not playing their best game, especially on the offensive side of the ball. This is a game that the Buckeyes were just able to find a way to win. Here is how each offensive graded out.

Justin Fields had the worst game of his career today. It was even worse than the IU game earlier this season. He was only 11/27 for 114 yards and threw 2 interceptions. He looked off the entire game. Worse than that, he hurt his thumb towards the end of the game.

Buckeye fans better hope that his thumb is healthy and he returns to the Fields of old. Fields only had 35 rushing yards too, so it’s not like he supplemented his poor passing with a really good rushing effort. Ohio State needs him at an elite level in the Playoff.

Trey Sermon had the best rushing performance of anyone in Ohio State history. He ran for 331 yards on 21 carries and two touchdowns, breaking Eddie George’s record of 314 yards. Sermon was the only reason that Ohio State was even close to winning this day. He was simply outstanding.

Master Teague must have gotten hurt because he was only out there very early, only carrying the ball twice for 23 yards. Miyan Williams carried it once for 10 yards. It was a good day for the running backs, but an all-time great day for Sermon.

The offensive line struggled early, especially Harry Miller. He got called for a holding that took away a touchdown and got beat for a sack. While the line didn’t particularly pass block well, they were absolutely stellar in the running game. They opened up tons of holes for Sermon to run through and really controlled the line of scrimmage in the second half.

Julian Fleming got a lot of targets early in this game. In fact, he had more catches today (4) than he did all season before this game (3). The receivers weren’t really a factor because Fields was so off. Garrett Wilson did have a really nice diving first down grab in the second half though.

Even though the tight ends didn’t’ get a single target in this game, they were brilliant. Luke Farrell had a great block on one of Sermon’s long runs, setting the edge for the back. All the tight ends blocked really well in this game. It was a great effort.

Ryan Day did have a horrible day calling plays, and that hurt Fields and the offense. Hopefully, he can rebound to have a better day in the semi-final against whoever their opponent may be.