Ohio State’s defense turned a corner in Iowa City

Ohio State’s defense had its best game of the season in the 31-14 win over Iowa. The Buckeye defense wasn’t happy after giving up 462 yards to Illinois last week, despite holding the Illini to 19 points. Senior defensive end and team captain Kenyatta Jackson Jr. said during the week that the problems were fixed. The numbers from Iowa City show that the Illinois game wasn’t the norm.

Iowa has an offense built around running the football and running it often. Ohio State had been allowing 111.5 yards per game this season and had just given up 199 to Illinois. This made the tall task Iowa presents even more pivotal and front and center. Ohio State was up to the challenge, though, and held Iowa to 39 rushing yards on 21 carries.

The Buckeyes were stout in the passing game, too. They gave up 199 yards through the air, a little above their 160.3 yards per game coming into the game. But they forced Iowa to pass more than the Hawkeyes would have liked to, completing 53 percent of their passes on 32 attempts. After allowing 462 yards of offense against Illinois, the defense allowed only 238 against a top-15 team.

That would indicate that Kenyatta Jackson Jr., his coaches, and his teammates did indeed fix the problem. Allowing only 14 points and holding an offense to 4.5 yards per play is a colossal improvement. Ohio State forced two turnovers, bringing its season total to eight and 1.6 per game.

There weren’t a lot of big-time highlights or massive plays by the defense, just a good, complete game. You don’t need to light up highlight reels when you hold an opponent to 238 total yards and only 14 points. That does all the talking and headline-grabbing you need.

Defensive Play of the Game

The tone was set on the opening drive of the game by Jackson. On their second play from scrimmage, the defensive leader had a strip-sack of Iowa quarterback Hank Brown. Christian Alliegro would recover the fumble. The Buckeye offense would score two plays later, and the tone was set for the remainder of this difficult road game.

Defensive Players of the Game

Ohio State’s defensive line has struggled this season, and while they didn’t play a perfect game against Iowa, they played their best game of 2026. It began with Jackson and his play of the game above, but it was a performance across the whole line.

Three players who had been kind of quiet this year came alive against Iowa. Qua Russaw, the Alabama transfer, had four tackles, 1.5 tackles for a loss, and his first sack as a Buckeye. Eddrick Houston and Zion Grady were like Russaw in that more had been expected of them this year, and they too delivered in Iowa City with four tackles each.

The Buckeyes will have a big opportunity against a struggling Maryland at home this coming week. They will have the chance to show that the good game they played at Iowa is the rule and not the exception. OSU will need to get the final wrinkles smoothed out before they play the defending national champions in Bloomington, Indiana, in two weeks and begin the stretch run of their tough schedule.

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