In Ohio State’s 36-31 win against Nebraska on Saturday, J.K. Dobbins rushed for a season-high 163 yards and Mike Weber picked up 91 yards on the ground, the most since his 186-yard outburst in the season opener against Oregon State.
It was a long time coming for both running backs.
Weber had the option to head to the NFL after last season, and many people pegged him to leave. After the Cotton Bowl, he had tears in his eyes while singing ‘Carmen’ with the rest of his teammates, and his eyes welled up while he sat in his locker. But, he opted to return. Thus far, though, he hasn’t had a smooth nine games, picking up 516 yards with a 5.4-yard average.
“It's frustrating,” Weber said. “You try to expect a certain thing, and you expect certain things and they don't happen, you can't just get down on yourself or you're teammates. You've got to keep coming each weekend, keep your faith and hopefully it'll work out for you.”
Dobbins’ yard-per-carry average is even lower at 4.3 yards, which bothered him in recent weeks, Weber said. Dobbins picked up 1,403 rushing yard last season, but isn’t even on pace to break the 1,000-yard mark and has a yard-per-carry average nearly three yards less than his last season.
“(Today was) huge,” Weber said. “(Dobbins) was getting down on himself also. Even if there wasn't holes or if he had a bad play, he was getting down on himself.”
“We knew what we have, but I don't know what was going on,” Dobbins said. “We're back on track, I believe.”
Weber also admitted he had got down on himself for the lack of production.
“Most definitely,” Weber said. “It happens. It's natural. We've got the right coaches to keep us motivated and eventually it's going to happen for us.”
Both Weber and Dobbins did better jobs breaking tackles, but they also got major help from an offensive line that took advantage of a run game that got rid of run-pass options. The line had heard the criticism and wanted to dispose of those who didn’t think it could pave blockers out of the way for the two backs.
There were mistakes that Isaiah Prince said the line needs to correct, but in aggregate, it played its best game in weeks.
“They got tired of hearing that,” Weber said. “We proved we could run the ball previous games. We've been on a slump the last few weeks, and I just feel like they did a good job responding this week.”
“The o-line is a position based on toughness, so when you say you can't run the ball, that's basically you telling us we're not tough,” Prince said. “And I think we all took that very personally going into this game, and we came out and we showed people that we can run the ball.”
Though the Buckeyes slid by a two-win team by just five points, they were mostly happy just to get by with a victory after suffering a multi-touchdown loss to Purdue.
“I think we're close. We better be when you see what's coming up next week, but I liked the effort today,” Meyer said.
However, Dwayne Haskins said they have to keep fighting to “show the country that we're one of the top teams.”
“We just feel like we're being disrespected right now,” Haskins said.
Nebraska entered the game on a two-game winning streak, and was three points away from coming in with three wins in a row, but not much was expected on Saturday from the team that lost by 46 points to Michigan, 14 points to Purdue and 17 points to Wisconsin. However, the Cornhuskers put up a strong fight and had the home crowd restless for much of the game.
“They played their nuts off,” Thayer Munford said. “Not going to lie about that. They did play with some heart. But at the same time, we did some mental mistakes that kind of messed up over.”
“I get it that that was a two-win team,” Meyer said. “But that's a two-win team that people don't want to play right now. Like I said, on videotape, I wasn't expecting to see what I saw. And very good players, very good scheme and guys are going to get very good. So to answer your question, we're going to go back to work. We're going to enjoy that win now. We're going to have a victory meal tomorrow night as a team, go enjoy it and go to work on the next one.”
The next time Nebraska takes on the Buckeyes in Ohio Stadium, there’s a chance Scott Frost has the program rolling, which means it won’t take them by surprise. Plus, that game in 2020 comes directly after back-to-back-to-back games against Iowa, at Michigan State and at Penn State, which could make for a difficult October stretch (and yes, I did just peek ahead to the 2020 schedule).
Though the Cornhuskers are just 2-7 and won’t even be eligible for a bowl this year, Frost still has high expectations for his group, so his emotions were not eased. He thought his team truly had a chance to win on Saturday.
“We had every chances in the world to win that game,” Frost said. “I thought the defense did a great job in the first half. Offense did great on the first drive, came back in the second quarter and did really well. Man, we just needed to get a stop and go get a score in the third quarter and I don't think we played real well in the third quarter for whatever reason.”
“What pleases me is the heart of this team,” Frost said. “This was a long time coming, and a lot of things had to happen to get a team that's going to go fight a top-10 team like that. Six weeks ago, we went to Ann Arbor and played a team like that and we had no chance, and we walked out of there with our tail between our legs. Now seeing how the guys are banding together and fighting and going blow for blow with a team like that, I'm excited at the same time that I'm really upset and disappointed we didn't find a way.”
