Ohio State-Penn State: Post Game Reaction

Ohio State had a great opportunity to make a statement game Saturday night in Happy Valley and failed to do so, at least on the offensive side of the ball. While the Buckeyes did run the ball efficiently, it was a very poor passing performance from J.T. Barrett.

The Buckeyes dominated the first half after a poor interception call in favor of Ohio State, gave the Buckeyes a short field and a couple plays later Ezekiel Elliott had a very good touchdown run. His early score was the main offensive highlight of the first half for Ohio State. The Buckeye defense did the rest of the work shutting out the Nittany Lion offense in the first half.

The Nittany Lions did a great job right out of the locker room intercepting Barrett off of a zone blitz which began the slow and painful comeback of Penn State.

The Buckeye offense continued its poor and very conservative play. J.T. Barrett played arguably his worst game of the year. He under-threw a couple deep passes, was late on reads across the middle, all of which could be attributed to the lack of effort in play calling to get the young quarterback in rhythm early in a hostile environment. Barrett never really looked comfortable in the pocket all night.

This poor offensive performance put immense pressure on the defense that stood up to the task the best they could. They stifled the Penn State rush game, pressured, hit, and intercepted Hackenburg multiple times.

The defense was put up to one last test on the final drive. Hackenburg drove the Nittany Lion offense down to around the Buckeyes 45, after starting on their own 8 where Joey Bosa created a very clutch sack. Following the sack, Curtis Grant was flagged for a roughing the passer penalty that put the Nittany Lions in field goal range with 30 seconds remaining.

A phantom timeout was called by Penn State that coach James Franklin adamantly stated he did not call.

After a lot shot towards the end zone that fell incomplete, Nittany Lion kicker Sam Ficken drove through the tying field goal to force over-time.

In over-time it was the J.T. Barrett show as Barrett played with immense heart after suffering a knee injury early on. His performance was admirable and very mature in over-time. Barrett used his excellent decision making and his will and desire to score two touchdowns in over-time to lead the Buckeyes to a double OT 31-24 victory for Ohio State.

Comments

  1. Maybe the problem is sec bias.

  2. Jimmy Wiggians says

    Some talk had Buckeye fans thinking’ a rematch with Virginia Tech would be a whole different story, well you can put that thinking’ to rest. Nittany Lions played inspired football second half and if the officials hadn’t blown two obvious crucial first half calls.. well it isn’tt a stretch they likely win. Along with Virginia Tech you have Miami, East Carolina, Pitt and Georgia Tech, just much better teams than the Bucks this year.

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