The Buckeyes started off the 2014 season with a 17 point victory vs. The Navy Midshipmen that felt more like a last second 4th quarter comeback win. Ohio State took control in the 2nd half, scoring 28 points after falling behind the Midshipmen 7-6 at the end of the 1st half.
Ohio State got a huge boost from linebacker Darron Lee who scooped up a Navy fumble and raced 61 yards for a go ahead TD. Navy answered a couple minutes later with a 1 yard touchdown by Keenan Reynolds. After tha Ohio State took complete control of the game, scoring 3 touchdowns to Navy’s 1 field goal.
The first half was dominated by bad offensive line play that resulted in stalled drives, penalties and constant pressure on J.T. Barrett who threw a costly interception in the red zone after getting pressure up the middle, avoiding it and carelessly throwing a bad ball.
The offensive line settled down in the second half and that allowed OSU’s offense to get back on track Barrett, in his first OSU start played well, throwing for 226 yards, 2 touchdowns and leading the Buckeyes in rushing with 50 yards. Braxton Miller, he is not, but he can clearly throw the football well when given time.
The jury is still out on the defense, who gave up 370 yards rushing to a Navy team who runs the option better than anyone. While they gave up tons of yards on the ground, they only gave up 17 points to a powerful offense and all world quarterback in Keenan Reynolds. The defensive line was outstanding, getting a few key stops in the 2nd half. Next week will be a better gauge for how far the defense has come along when they play Virginia Tech, a team that runs a normal offense.
This team is very young and very talented. They will make you want to tear out your hair one minute and make you jump out of your seat with excitement.
Buckle up Buckeye fans. It’s gonna be a fun year.
More game detail to follow.
I think you nailed it with this post Kade… Overall I was impressed with the defense. I think we will see a much better product as the season goes on. I also was impressed with JTs passing. Feels like he is a better passer than Brax or TP were possibly ever in their careers but for sure at this point in their careers. Running game was ok but must get better. The OL probably needs to change some players to see if something works better.
Yep, this encapsulates pretty much how I felt, too. The OL is the biggest area of concern for me, but overall they did ok. Over 400 yards of offense after starting so erratically is a pretty good feat. I think the DL did they best they could given what they had to work with.
And JT Barrett showed he’ll be able to run this offense just fine, we’ll just miss the “wow” moments with Braxton. But hopefully that means we’ll have more chances for “wow” moments from Zeke, Dontre and Curtis Samuel.
Oh and Jalin Marshall. He and Tyquan Lewis were eye openers. And it was good to see Mr. April (Thomas) make some plays. There’s a lot to be excited about.
I don’t think playing a service academy tells you anything about your defense. Looking back through the Rushing Offense stats, since 2008 the lowest any of the three placed nationally was #16. Usually they’re all in the top 10. In 2011, the top four teams were the three academies and Georgia Tech–who runs the exact same offense.
Let’s put it this way: are we celebrating our shutdown pass D because we only gave up 20 yards through the air on Saturday?
It would have been nice to stop of couple of their longer running plays, but I bet if you analyzed the actual play of the defense, it would come out looking ok. But like you said, this game doesn’t give us any kind of idea to what went well and what didn’t. I think it’s time to replace Navy with someone else on the schedule that won’t cause fans to rip their hair out as triple option after triple option goes for positive yardage and the clock is basically on turbo mode.