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Ohio State football: Grading Buckeyes after win vs. Penn State
By Jim Tomlin
Published:
Ohio State faced its toughest test of the season on Saturday and the No. 2 ranked Buckeyes delivered with a 28-17 victory over No. 8 Penn State at Ohio Stadium.
OSU (11-0 overall, 8-0 B1G) clinched the Big Ten East Division title and became the first team to reach three consecutive league championship games since the B1G split into divisions in 2011.
Here are 5 things I liked and 3 I didn’t from a big Buckeyes victory in Columbus.
5 things I liked
Chase Young again: Buckeyes defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley said after the game that defensive end Chase Young is not just the best defensive player but the best college football player in America. Who are we to argue? Young once again tore it up on a big stage with 3 sacks against the Nittany Lions. Young, who also had 4 sacks against Wisconsin last month, broke the OSU team record for sacks in a season with 16.5; Vernon Gholston had held the record since 2007 when he had 14. Not bad for a player who had sat out the previous two games.
Run defense: Much of the talk coming into the game surrounded the running game of both teams. PSU needed to establish the ground game to help keep OSU’s explosive offense off the field. It happened to a degree in the third quarter, when great field position helped the Nittany Lions score two rushing touchdowns. But OSU allowed just 99 rushing yards on 37 attempts (2.7 yards per carry) for the game and held the Nittany Lions to 227 total yards.
Dobbins’ durability: Running back J.K. Dobbins has had a reliable backfield partner in Master Teague all season, helping OSU keep its star runner fresh. But on Saturday it was all Dobbins all day as the junior carried the ball 36 times for 157 yards and 2 touchdowns.
His day was not perfect (more on that later). But, like a baseball team managing its ace’s pitch count all year so he has enough in the tank to dominate in the postseason, OSU managed Dobbins’ workload all season so he could unload on Penn State when it mattered most. He was just one carry short of his career high (37 in 2018 vs. Maryland).
Establish ground dominance early: Coming in, Penn State was No. 4 in the country in run defense, allowing just 76 yards per game on the ground. The Buckeyes didn’t want to hear it. Led by Dobbins and quarterback Justin Fields, Ohio State gained 91 yards rushing — on its first possession. Fields only attempted one pass on the drive and it was incomplete. He and Dobbins combined for 12 rushes, almost all behind left tackle Thayer Munford and left guard Jonah Jackson, on a 91-yard TD drive to set the tone.
OSU finished with 229 yards on 61 carries; the 3.8-yard average is not spectacular but it got the job done.
Olave TD catch: It was not all ground and pound for the Buckeyes. Fields was 16-of-22 passing for 188 yards and 2 touchdowns. The dagger was a beautiful throw to Chris Olave for a 28-yard touchdown, the only score in the fourth quarter. OSU took a 28-17 lead and the defense shut down PSU from there.
3 things I didn’t like
Fumbling: A stat line with 61 rushes and 22 pass attempts would have been straight out of the Woody Hayes school of game planning. (Maybe Hayes would not have thrown quite that much.) But 4 fumbles, 3 lost, would have made the old man apoplectic. Fields lost two fumbles including one at the goal line in the first quarter; his run was initially called a touchdown but replay ruled, correctly, that the ball came out before Fields crossed the plane into the end zone.
Later, PSU linebacker Micah Parsons forced Dobbins to fumble. Penn State recovered at the OSU 12-yard line and punched it into the end zone 2 plays later to get within 21-14. Another Fields fumble led to a Nittany Lions field goal which closed the gap to 21-17.
Clifford injury: Nittany Lions quarterback Sean Clifford left the game in the third quarter, shaken up after a hit from OSU linebacker Malik Harrison. Backup quarterback Will Levis came in off the bench and did a fine job; in fact, he was on the field for all three of PSU’s scoring drives. There was nothing wrong with Harrison’s hit but you hate to see a competitor such as Clifford have to leave such a critical game with an injury.
Seven-day wait: Yeah, I know players need to rest. But these next seven days until America’s best sports rivalry between Ohio State and Michigan resumes will seem like an eternity.
Longtime newspaper veteran Jim Tomlin is a writer and editor for saturdaytradition.com and saturdaydownsouth.com.