Pinched between a top-25 matchup with TCU and a game against No. 9 Penn State for first place in the Big Ten East, Ohio State’s Week 4 matchup against Tulane was expected to be the Buckeyes’ third blowout win in three games, and it was just that.
The game might as well have just ended at halftime.
Until its final drive, Ohio State did not score in the second half and the Green Wave could not muster a single points after scoring once early in the second quarter. Dwayne Haskins came one touchdown pass away from tying the program record for single-game passing touchdowns despite not playing a second-half snap.
He, along with the no-longer-winless Cleveland Browns and Jeff Brohm’s Purdue Boilermakers had big weeks while Virginia Tech embarrassed itself and Rutgers lost again, this time to Buffalo — and the Bulls don’t have Khalil Mack to explain the decimation.
Stock up
Ohio State’s sophomore five-star prospects
Last year’s Ohio State team was loaded with veterans. It’s what kept Haskins on the bench, backing up J.T. Barrett. The veteran presence also kept the recently recruited five-star prospects from seeing much action beyond mop-up duty in out-of-hand blowouts.
Chase Young sat behind Nick Bosa, Tyquan Lewis, Jalyn Holmes and Sam Hubbard. Baron Browning played just 95 snaps the entire season while Jerome Baker, Chris Worley and Tuf Borland earned the majority of the playing time. And with Denzel Ward accompanying Kendall Sheffield and Damon Arnette, there wasn’t much room for Jeffrey Okudah, until the Cotton Bowl when he filled in for Ward.
As sophomores, Young, Browning and Okudah have chances to shine. With Bosa injured, Young must step up. Browning had his first career sack on Saturday and stuck out making plays at the second level as he battles with Borland for playing time. Though a penalty negated the play, Okudah’s interception that was eventually called back, it was hard not to notice his natural ability to come down with the ball.
The trio of former five-star prospects, along with Shaun Wade, who has flirted with a bigger role in the secondary, will be key to Ohio State achieving its ultimate goals this season.
Dwayne Haskins’ Heisman odds
He just keeps rising.
The Haskins Hive, as it was termed last year, continues to grow with each impressive game. On Monday, Bovada.lv raised Haskins’ odds to win the Heisman Trophy to 5-to-1, placing him second behind Tua Tagovailoa.
If Nick Bosa-less Ohio State manages to take down Penn State on Sunday, expect Haskins' odds to only continue to improve.
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns won a football game. If that sentence looks foreign to you, it’s because you had not read it in the 635 days between Thursday and the team’s prior win.
And, of all people to lead the comeback victory, of course it was Baker Mayfield, who was not particularly well liked in Columbus about a year ago. But, he has already made many Ohio State fans come around on just a little more than a year after planting the flag on the field at Ohio Stadium. How long until he makes the rest of the Browns and Buckeyes fans believers in his turnaround of the franchise?
Unfortunately, Cleveland plays the Raiders on Sunday, which means its record cannot remain an impeccably perfect 1-1-1 for more than five more days. Cherish it, folks.
Stock down
Virginia Tech
The Hokies have been a respectable program since Justin Fuente took over prior to the 2016 season. They collected 10 wins and picked up a win in the Belk Bowl his first year, then won nine games last season. It seemed like there would be more of the same in store this season, considering the ACC’s lack of strength and their No. 13 ranking.
However, any believers in Virginia Tech quickly packed up shop and sold all their Hokie stock after watching Fuente’s team fall to Old Dominion, 49-35.
As if the loss wasn’t bad enough, Virginia Tech learned Monday that quarterback Josh Jackson suffered a broken fibula.
And on Sunday, star defensive end Trevon Hill, who led the team with 3 1/2 sacks, was kicked off the team. Following the dismissal, he changed his Twitter avatar to a screenshot of a story written about Virginia Tech’s loss to Old Dominion. Since then, he has changed his avatar back to a photo of himself, but that screenshot will stick around for a while.
Trevon Hills new profile picture is interesting to say the least in light of this news. pic.twitter.com/iIGtJfNkb7
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) September 23, 2018
Kelly Bryant
After just four games, Dabo Swinney gave Kelly Bryant the hook. It wasn’t necessarily his fault. Bryant has passed for 461 yards with a 66.7 completion rate, while adding 130 rushing yards.
But, it proved as hard as many people imagined for him to hold off freshman phenom Trevor Lawrence. After tossing four touchdown passes and totalling 176 passing yards in Clemson’s win against Georgia Tech, Lawrence was named starter by Swinney.
Trevor Lawrence can play. Great throw here for the touchdown to Renfroe. #CLEMvsGT pic.twitter.com/NvCLkY4gjj
— Sports Burd (@Sports_Burd) September 22, 2018
This situation, of course, is applicable to Ohio State’s just one year ago. Sure, it’s hindsight, but the question of whether Urban Meyer made a mistake not benching Barrett in favor of Haskins at some point will forever linger.
Nick Saban made the move from Jalen Hurts to Tua Tagovailoa in the national title game, and now Swinney made the tough decision to bench the veteran for the exciting, yet inexperienced replacement. Meyer opted to ride it out with Barrett.
Rutgers and Nebraska
Surely at the beginning of the season, Scott Frost didn’t anticipate being lumped in with Rutgers just a few weeks into his stint as Nebraska head coach, but here we are.
To make matters worse, the Scarlet Knights have actually won one of their four games, while the Cornhuskers are winless in their three contests to open the season. That’s a tough look for Frost, who led Central Florida to an undefeated 2017 season that ended with the program declaring itself the national champion, something that started as a joke but morphed into something much larger that has some people trying to make it a legitimate claim. This year, however, there will be no national titles in Lincoln to celebrate in January.
But at least Frost has coached just three games and has a freshman quarterback, Adrian Martinez, who many believe can eventually lead a talent-infused roster to some winning seasons. Rutgers, on the other hand, is fairly hopeless, despite Artur Sitkowski inspiring hope among some Scarlet Knight fans.
Former Ohio State defensive coordinator Chris Ash has mustered just seven wins since Rutgers hired him in 2016. He inherited a mess, but hasn’t made it any better. Kansas and Buffalo beat the Scarlet Knights by a combined 70 points in their back-to-back wins against Rutgers. And though Ash has done little to prove he deserves a fourth year guiding Rutgers’ program, he might not be fireable.
Because, for some reason, Rutgers did not account for the possibility it would have to fire a coach in the third year of his contract, Ash has a $9.8 million buyout. Stock up, though? The agents of college football coaches.
