Join your fellow Buckeye fans to chat during the Wisconsin football game, and since the game will be out of hand by the time 5 o’clock rolls around, we’ll just transition into talking about the basketball team’s tilt against Rhode Island.

As always, presented without comment.

Stats are grabbed from cfbstats.com.

Braxton Miller and crew picked up right where they left off this afternoon, grinding and throwing their way to a perfect 10-0 record, beating Illinois soundly and unequivocally, 52-22.

The defense once again came to play, limiting the admittedly anemic Illinois offense to a paltry 170 yards. The Illini couldn’t get anything going on the ground or through the air. Nathan Scheelhaase was pestered all game long by Simon and Williams and the defense stonewalled whatever rushing attack Illinois tried to mount.

The linebacking corps also came to play, with Shazier and Boren keeping Scheelhaasein in front of them and containing Donovonn Young and the Illinois ground game.

Braxton definitely “went back to quarterbacking school” after the Penn State game. His passes looked much crisper and his pass to Rod Smith on his 50 yard wheel route was a thing of beauty. He also is clearly developing a rapport with Nick Vannett. Braxton also pitched in with 73 yards on the ground and a TD run to top of another impressive performance.

For his part, Carlos Hyde put together another strong effort, carrying the ball 18 times for 137 yards and three touchdowns.

At this point, the Ohio State ground game is a known quantity. They’re going to grind out yards on the ground and get them in bunches at times. The passing game is still nascent, but is showing signs of development.

All was not perfect, of course. Special teams coverage left something to be desired and personal fouls kept drives alive longer than they should have. Fumbles can be costly. But we’ll let the coaches worry about that and just enjoy another dominating performance.

Ohio State: 52
Illinois: 22

Save The Turtle!!

As always, presented without comment.

Stats are grabbed from cfbstats.com.

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. Miss me? I missed you. We only have so many more times to do this this year, only so many more times to memorialize this strange season in so many picture frames, as it were. It’s hard to believe it’s already week nine, heading toward the double digits.

SPEAKING OF WEEK TEN: The kick-off time for the Illinois game has been set for 3:30 on the ESPN.

BLAME YOU, BLAME ME, BLAME EVERYONE!: There’s not a whole lot more to be said about Saturday’s dismantling of the Penn State bandwagon that YNBA hasn’t already said, but I do want to point out just a couple things. These have probably already been said elsewhere, but bear with me. First off, as YNBA adroitly pointed out, those poor beleaguered Penn State fans have been beating to death that straw-man ref they built. It must feel so good. The cognitive dissonance is palpable. But those guys are actually sane compared to what I read over at BWI (Blue White Illustrated) after the game Saturday night. I’m choosing not to link them because I don’t want to subject you to that nonsense, but feel free to wade into their bizarro world if you want to. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Speaking of complaining about the refs, we all know that the biggest complaint came on the holding call against Penn State’s punt return team. As we often have to do with defending the pass interference call against Miami in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl, we must go, as they say, to the scoreboard: SCOREBOARD (via 7-11W).

Let me just set the scene. Bryce Haynes had previously been one of the first Buckeyes down on punt coverage, making a nice tackle the punt before. Penn State’s punt return team is instructed that someone (let’s call him Brad Bars) will be playing the part of Gandalf to Haynes’ Balrog. “You shall not pass” indeed. SCOREBOARD

(Full disclosure: I was a long snapper in high school. I had this, and all manner of other offenses, occur to me on the regular).

And we won’t even get into the Chaos theory that Penn State has to claim in order for that holding call to affect the game. As sportsMonkey pointed out to me this morning during our daily IMs: “so that play in the 2nd quarter… somehow made the OSU defense sack McGloin in the 3rd, then caused him to throw a pick six, then caused Miller to throw an INT, then caused PSU to kick a FG…”

And so on.

THE BEST DEAN SHAZIER IN THE LAND: I told SYR on Friday after Ryan Shazier tweeted:

https://twitter.com/ryanshazier10/status/261838212270526464

that I no longer worried about the Buckeyes in this game. Shazier had his coming out party last year against Penn State and was primed for another breakout performance. His third quarter (and really, the whole game’s) performance bore that out. And his effort has been recognized by the B1G, being named Co-Defensive Player of the Week. Much deserved and a great tribute to his friend.

I’LL JUST SLIDE:

“Oh my God, Carlos [Hyde] was like, ‘You all right?’ so I need to practice that,” Miller said.

Yeah, Braxton’s going to have to practice avoiding those hits.

RUN, FAT BOY: Maybe it’s just me, but Jake Stoneburner runs like Tim Tebow.

MISC: No surprise here, Ohio State has cemented itself as the MOST POWERFUL TEAM IN THE BIG TEN. After the Michigan loss, I am obliged to link this. Metric Football: the Liter Bowl.