The first week has come and gone, already. We wait 7 months only to have the season blink by it seems. However, we are moving on to the second week of the season where Ohio State will open its Big Ten play with Rutgers.
A successful first week for the Ohio State Buckeyes as we now start the season off 1-0. The Buckeyes put up 77 points in the first game of the Dwayne Haskin era. 70 of the points being offensive, the other would be a Nick Bosa fumble recovery. The Buckeyes didn’t have a top power 5 opponent, but the Oregon State Beavers are a power 5 school. It was the first time since 2016, against Bowling Green, the Buckeyes put up 77 points in a game. The offense looked stellar. They could seriously do no wrong. They had to punt one time, and it was during a drive with Tate Martell at the quarterback position. The Buckeyes had the right game plan, right matchups, and well the better talent.
The defense side also played very well. There is cause for concern at the safety position. However, Jordan Fuller was absent from the game with hamstring issues. Also, Marcus Hooker was suspended for the first game of the season and is expected back. So, the safety concerns may be fixed here in no time. The only other problem was the first two drives in the second half where Oregon State had back to back touchdown runs of 80 and 78 yards, respectively. The game was strange. It was a beautiful day in the first half. There wasn’t really a cloud in the sky. Both teams went to the locker room for halftime, then had to sit there an extra hour and a half due to a crazy rain storm. The start of the second half and the rest of the game was then beautiful outside. Ohio State goes the ball to start, had a quick strike to Terry McLaurin from Haskins for a 75-yard touchdown. Then Oregon State had an 80-yard run. Ohio State had a 10 play drive for a touchdown that only took 2 minutes and 30 seconds off the clock. The Oregon State had a 78-yard run. Four touchdowns in the span of 3 minutes and 54 seconds. I’m going to say the delay had something to do with the big running plays. So with the whole offseason and a new quarterback, this was almost a great of a first game as Ohio State could have hoped for.
Rutgers has the number 1 defense in the country in terms of yardage per game. Seriously. Haha. Okay, I know many of you would never buy that. Rutgers did hold the Texas State Bobcats to 176 yards last game. Held the quarterback to 7/20 for only 79 yards. But this is Texas State we are talking about. They finished 2-10 last year. Rutgers is probably getting better like many, many are hoping for, but I’m not so sure, yet. Sadly, their best cornerback, Blessuan Austin, will not play on Saturday with an ongoing knee injury.
Rutgers offense is still not quite there yet. Artur Sitkowski, the quarterback, threw 20/30, but also threw 3 interceptions, 2 of them being in the red zone. They ran the ball decently for 218 yards. Johnathan Hilliman had two rushing touchdowns on only 15 carries. But, again, that was against Texas State.
Ohio State has played Rutgers now 4 times. In 2014, the Buckeyes won 56-17. In 2015, the Buckeyes won 49-7. In 2016, the Buckeyes won 58-0. In 2017, the Buckeyes won 56-0. I do believe this is the best Rutgers team Chris Ash has had so far. But I also believe this could very well be the best Ohio State team Urban Meyer has had, especially in terms of recruiting. Now the first game of the season we saw almost every play work to perfection. Will that happen here against Rutgers? Probably not. However, Urban Meyer returned to the practice field this week, and that really only can help the Buckeyes get better. I see no reason Ohio State should even come close to losing this game, and since everyone is talking about the defense and how awful they were(they weren’t). We could see a very fired up defense. I am going to predict the score to be 70-6.
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