Final score: Ohio State 59, Akron 7

Brief recap: This game was never in doubt. Ohio State went up 14-7 after the first quarter and then outscored the Zips 24-0 in the 2nd quarter to lead 38-7 going into halftime. Kyle McCord was outstanding filling in for the injured CJ Stroud as he finished with 319 yards passing with 2 touchdowns to 1 interception.

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Key player: This one is too easy. It has to be McCord who potentially just showed head coach Ryan Day that he should be the starter moving forward. As mentioned above, he had 319 yards passing yards in this game as the Buckeyes offense looked much crisper with him running the show. Perhaps Day will let Stroud rest another week and let McCord play against Rutgers next Saturday?

Key moment: Jaxon Smith-Njigba scored a touchdown with a little over 10 minutes left in the second quarter to make it 21-7. The Buckeyes weren’t as sharp up until that point but when that happened, everything else just fell into place. McCord threaded a beautiful pass to him from 36 yards out and the Buckeyes went on to score 17 more points in the quarter after that. Smith-Njigba finished the night with 93 yards on 5 catches, plus that TD.

Key stat: 622 – that’s the number of total yards the Buckeyes had on offense against Akron. 237 of those came via the ground as TreVeyon Henderson had another strong game. He finished with 93 yards on 8 carries with 2 touchdowns while Master Teague, Miyan Williams, and Evan Pryor weren’t too shabby either. They finished with 71, 47, and 35 yards rushing respectively.

What it means: OSU is now 3-1 heading into the rest of B1G play and this may have quieted some of the doubters at least for a week. They’ll look to move to 4-1 next week when they travel to New Jersey to take on Rutgers at 3:30 p.m. ET.