Favorite Stat of the Game: 76th win for Ohio State against Indiana and their 26th straight win (yes, I count 2010, for Ohio State, always have, always will, and I don’t count a tie as breaking a winning streak, only a loss can do that). If you want to be one of the biggest programs around, you win the games you’re supposed to win. Losses to Indiana should be very rare and thankfully they are. 76-12-5 is what you’re supposed to do to the Indianas on your schedule.
The Brooklyn Dagger Award: Damon Arnette’s pick six that went 96 yards to the house. It took the fight out of the Hoosiers. I know the score was already well out of reach but this was the final nail in the coffin, there was no coming back from that for Indiana.
Dwayne Haskins (Player of the Game) Award: I have a feeling that the rest of this year I could just flip a coin between J.K. Dobbins and Justin Fields every week for this one and I wouldn’t be wrong. The way these two are playing reminds me of Saquan Barkley and Trace McSorley, except Fields is a better passer than McSorley and Dobbins is more power than the shifty of Barkley. Dobbins had 56-yard run, saying sorry about that drop but I’m just gonna keep on trucking. His touchdown run of 26 yards made 6 guys miss tackles and had shades of Marshawn Lynch. Dobbins had 20 rushes, 175 yards, and a touchdown by half time. He ended the game with 22 carries for 193 yards and a touchdown. He also had two catches for 14 yards and another touchdown. 200 total yards and 2 touchdowns are all in a days work for J.K. Dobbins.
Ryan Shazier-Devin Smith Award: Josh Proctor is going to be a star, he had two picks dropped today, but he’ll get that cleaned up and when he does, watch out. He reminds me of Malik Hooker. Speaking of Hooker, Malik’s brother Marcus had a strong hit on special teams today, reminding us that the Bosas don’t have a monopoly on Buckeye Brothers. Today’s true young guns to watch out for are Zach Harrison and Tyler Friday. Friday had a sack and a tackle for a loss and Harrison got his first sack of his Buckeye career. So when Chase Young is taken as a top three pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, I won’t be too worried, because Friday, and Harrison will be the next guys up.
Dane Sanzenbacher Award: Zone 6. It seems like different receiver every big play for this team and that’s difficult to do, because it becomes hard to get in a rhythm when you’re rotating, but you’re staying fresh, and keeping the defense guessing as to who is going to get the ball, which means they have to defend everyone. Hats off to Hartline and his guys for doing this so well and as a unit. Victor, Olave, Mack, Hill, Wilson, and Brown all had receptions. Having unselfish weapons will benefit Fields and the team.
Taylor Decker Award: Silver Bullets and their tackling for a loss. The guys who were the least sure spot on the team last year have stepped up huge this season. Pete Werner, Malik Harrison, Shaun Wade, Chase Young, Tyler Friday, Javontae Jean-Baptiste, Davon Hamilton, and Zach Harrison all had tackles for a loss. They had twelve tackles for a loss of 43 yards and held Indiana as a team to 257 total yards. To quote John Wick, Everyone keeps asking if the Silver Bullets are back, I’m thinking they’re back.
Fedora Award: Justin Fields. There is no replacing Dwayne Haskins. However, a guy can come in and be his own brand of epic. Haskins did it for J.T. Barrett. J.T. and Cardale did it for Braxton, and now Fields is doing it with Haskins. Fields had 210 total yards and four total touchdowns. On the season he has 771 total yards, and 13 touchdowns through three games. Not bad, not bad at all.
Sweater Vest Award: Chris Olave. Many players in a stable of elite receivers could phone in their special teams play and not be thought less of. Many do. Not Zone 6. Not Chris Olave. Olave notched his second blocked punt of his career and it resulted in a safety. Jim Tressel and any great coach and fans love seeing guys giving their all, all the time. Chris Olave does that every week.
Archie Award: Urban Meyer in giving a preview for Fox’s halftime show said some very key things that just reminds any Buckeye that Urban is still an Ohio State guy (though I doubt any of use have forgotten that fact). When asked how the Buckeyes were doing he answered with ‘We’ about the Buckeyes, showing how much love he still has for his old team, coaches and players he loved and battled alongside of and a program which was his dream job. We still love you coach. When asked about how Ohio State was handling Indiana he said the Bucks were putting a ‘Beating’ on Indiana and asking what he loved about how Ohio State was playing he answered ‘Everything’ and he had that Urban Meyer grin he’d only get when his guys were winning. I think I can speak for all Ohio State fans when I say how happy I am that things are working out well for our old coach.
Horned Rimmed Glasses Award: In our nod to history we to the Indiana coach’s pregame speech. Tom Allen encouraged his Hoosiers to be Buster Douglas in his pre-game speech. They did not. They lost and they forgot that Buster Douglas is from Columbus, Ohio. We also look at other Ohio State coaches in their first game against the Hoosiers. Woody Hayes in 1951 lost the 10-33. Hayes then went 22-0-1 against the Hoosiers. Earle Bruce won 47-6 in 1979. John Cooper lost 7-41 in 1988. Jim Tressel won 27-14 in 2001. Urban Meyer won a shootout 52-49 in 2012 and now Ryan Day has won 51-10 in 2019. The best Ohio State coaches have had a record of dominating Indiana, and Ryan Day is right on track with the best of them.
Bad Coaching Moment of the Game: Ohio State is still vulnerable to the tight end over the middle. That’s going to be a place teams like MSU, Wisconsin, and that team up north will look to attack the Buckeyes. The good news is, that this problem has been identified early and there should be ways to get it taken care of.
Urban Meyer (Good Coaching) Moment of the Game: I said it on Twitter but that first possession of the second half for the Buckeyes was perfect. Best of the season easily. Balanced. Methodical. Three runs, four passes, and a touchdown. They passed to the sideline, they pass intermediately, and over the middle and ran to the middle and the outside. It was a stark contrast between the FAU game when they took their foot off of the gas. This one they came out wanting to finish what they had started emphatically, and they did.
Glass Half Empty: Shredding FAU, UC, and Indiana is good. It’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to run roughshod over them and Ohio State did and shouldn’t be too excited about doing what everyone expected out of them. Indiana did some good things that were somewhat effective that you know other teams will do and do better, such as passing over the middle to the tight end and sitting down in the gaps in Ohio State’s zone defensive coverage, and bringing extra rushers on third down against Fields.
Glass Half Full: If you keep doing what you’re supposed to at Ohio State, you’ll win a national championship. You’ve gotten to see some weak areas of your team, to work on, like plugging gaps in the zone coverage, covering the tight end, and picking up blitzes and blocking better. The offense is doing a little bit of everything. Screens, running between the tackles, running outside, getting the running backs in passing game, throwing deep, throwing to the sidelines, threw at the tight ends today, running the quarterback on purpose, letting him scramble, they did it all. They are making defenses have to defend everything! There’s no better way to run an offense and no more difficult attack for a defense to try to stop. When the track you’re on is toward a national title run, it’s good to be right on track.
2014 Moment: In 2014 Ohio State beat Indiana 42-27 and Jalin Marshall shredded the Hoosiers while wearing 17. Chris Olave wore number 17 today and blocked a punt, had a crazy toe drag to make a catch on the sideline at the 9:59 mark in the first quarter, and had the offensive play of the game on a Fields to Olave bomb in the 2nd quarter on play action for a 37-yard touchdown pass.
2002 Moment: On their first possession Indiana had lost yards on the first play, lost on the second, none on the third, and finally punted. Indiana would have to get to their seventh third down before they could actually convert one. Even on the gains that Indiana had, the Buckeyes were flying to the ball with purpose throughout the game, something that hadn’t always been the case in the last couple of Buckeye seasons. We’ll find out for sure against Nebraska and MSU but the Silver Bullets are back.
1968 Moment: A complete game from this team. Through three games really, the only flaws one can point out are what everyone outside of Ohio and the Buckeye coaching staff would say is nitpicking. The Fox team calling the game, Gus Johnson and Joel Klatt said the only teams on par with Ohio State are Clemson, Bama, and OU. That’s high praise, and I have to agree. There isn’t a team better than Ohio State and the only team that could really stop Ohio State at this point is Ohio State. And they haven’t stopped themselves yet and show no signs of slowing down or doing so.
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