Everybody knows teams can win football games with transcendent offense, just as teams can also clinch victories by playing lockdown defense.

Far rarer is the victory earned primarily on special teams. Except, of course, when Ohio State squared up Saturday against Indiana in a 60-minute referendum on Hoosiers football.

The No. 2-ranked Buckeyes cruised to their 10th win Saturday by forcing the No. 5-ranked Hoosiers into whatever level of pain is reserved for punting miscues – a 38-15 victory by Ohio State that knocked Indiana out of the Land of the Unbeatens and off its lofty, unexpected perch and fully under the College Football Playoff committee’s microscope.

Yes, the Ohio State victory means only a regular season-ending tussle with That Team Up North at next weekend at The Shoe stands in the way of yet another Big Ten title game. But just as emphatically, the Indiana loss more than likely sinks the Hoosiers’ Cinderella march toward a coveted Playoff spot.

The Hoosiers are still 10-1, but they scored 20 and 15 points, respectively, against the 2 best teams they faced this season, Michigan and Ohio State.

What Saturday also solved is that one must operate one’s punting unit successfully if one wants to stay in the national conversation. That was something Indiana most certainly didn’t do – uncorking 2 botches that resulted in 2 Ohio State touchdowns.

The first botch was an absolute gift, as Hoosiers punter James Evans bungled a clean snap back to him late in the second quarter – with the loose ball bouncing all the way back to the Indiana 11. From there, Ohio State needed just 2 plays to cash in via a TreVeyon Henderson 4-yard touchdown rumble and a 14-7 lead.

Indiana’s punting woes continued on the opening drive of the third quarter, this time with Evans cleanly getting a 52-yard punt away to the Ohio State 21-yard line. Problem there was that Caleb Downs was waiting – fielding the punt on one hop and winding his way 79 yards for an electrifying return score and a 21-7 lead.

That play cranked up the delirium to 11 inside The Shoe and had Indiana coach Curt Cignetti shaking his head on the Hoosiers sideline. After all, Cignetti – who was introduced to Hoosiers fans last season by proclaiming “Ohio State sucks!” and earned a lucrative contract extension last week with a historic 10-0 start – surely knew that good teams might be able to upend great teams making 1 mistake, sure. But 2? Not a chance.

Saturday didn’t exactly start that way, of course, as Indiana’s defense stoned the Buckeyes on the game’s opening drive, then meandered 70 yards on 11 plays the first time they touched the rock to grab a 7-0 lead.

After that drive, though, it was pretty much all Ohio State. Emeka Egbuka snared an 11-yard dart from Will Howard to tie it at 7 midway through the first quarter, starting a 31-0 run.

Indiana might’ve unloaded the entire clip in its cleats with special teams foul-ups, but it didn’t help that Hoosiers quarterback Kurtis Rourke spent a goodly amount of time scraping himself off the Ohio Stadium carpet. The Buckeyes sacked Rourke 5 times, setting Indiana back 46 yards in the process and stifling potential drives before they could bloom into fruition.

What, exactly, to do with Indiana now is a central point of discussion moving forward. Yes, the current Playoff rankings are littered with 1-loss Power 4 teams. But they all have more compelling resumes than the Hoosiers – who spit out their first taste of high-altitude air Saturday like spoiled baby food.

Compare and contrast is always tricky when doing side-by-side schedules, but if you put Cignetti’s unit against, say, Penn State or Miami … one quickly sees that Indiana coughed up the shot it had at wearing the glass slipper past midnight. Saturday’s mood as the OSU’s fight song echoed through the late-afternoon mist felt as much like Indiana’s funeral as a dub from the home team.

Ohio State, on the other hand, is very much feeling itself – convincingly winning a 2nd test against a top-5 program and sending a message of sorts by punching it in for a final TD in the final seconds. That cruel 1-point loss at No. 1 Oregon keeps regressing in the rear-view mirror, and the Buckeyes just keep getting saltier and saltier on both sides of the ball. Supposing a home W next weekend against the Maize & Blue team that shall not be named, a return date with the Ducks on neutral ground will tantalize the nation.

Life is cruel sometimes in college football, razor-thin margins separating victory and defeat. But Saturday, Indiana learned – the hard way – that for all the storybook starts that can be authored, you still gotta play special teams to win tough games.