Five Things: Ohio State Dishes Out 38-14 Beatdown To Penn State, Remains Undefeated at 8-0

By Chris Lauderback on November 2, 2025 at 10:10 am
Jeremiah Smith
Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch-USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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No. 1 Ohio State kept its undefeated start to the 2025 campaign intact as the Buckeyes rode the precise right arm of Julian Sayin, the hands of Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate, and the collective strength and skill of the Silver Bullets to easily handle Penn State, 38-14, yesterday afternoon in Ohio Stadium. 

A CJ Donaldson fumble deep in OSU territory helped Penn State trail just 17-14 at intermission but the Buckeyes dominated the second half on both sides of the ball, scoring 21 unanswered points to win by 24 and easily cover the 17.5-point spread. 

Former Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles made his return to The Shoe and saw his defense get obliterated, giving up five touchdowns, 480 yards and 22 first downs. 

Meanwhile, Penn State's offense managed just 200 total yards against new (and improved) OSU defensive coordinator Matt Patricia's group - its fewest against the Buckeyes since 2005. 

The win was Ohio State's 9th-straight against the Nittany Lions, good for the longest run in the series' history which the Buckeyes now lead 26-14. 

With that, let's get to Five Things from a decisive victory on the banks of the Olentangy. 

ELEVATING THE STANDARD

Eight games into Julian Sayin's first year as a starting quarterback and I feel like we're already running out of superlatives to describe his play. 

The man was on fire yesterday as he connected on 20-of-23 passes for 316 yards and four touchdowns - so yeah, he had more touchdown passes than incompletions against what was statistically the 5th-best pass defense in the country (145 ypg) entering the game. 

His 87% completion rate on the afternoon is stellar without any other considerations but add in the fact he averaged 13.7 yards per attempt and 15.8 yards per completion (and had at least one throwaway) and you're talking about legendary accuracy. 

Those metrics spell out that he wasn't simply dinking and dunking but here's some visual proof of his elite ball placement, even on a deep strike. 

As I tweeted yesterday afternoon, through 8 outings, Sayin has yet to throw three consecutive incomplete passes in the same game. He's only thrown back-to-back incompletions 3 times (once each versus Ohio, Texas and Penn State) and remains the national leader in completion rate, now improved to 80.7%.

Yesterday, Sayin completed his final 11 passes for 206 yards and 3 touchdowns.

It's not just the OSU homers like me taking notice either. Dane Brugler is an elite draft analyst and he's already foaming at the mouth watching Sayin drop dime after dime on Saturdays. 

While his arm talent is the headliner for sure, he's also continued to improve his command of the offense and his footwork. He peeled off an impressive 9-yard run on 3rd-and-5 to move the chains with OSU up only 10-7 late in the second quarter. Three plays later he delivered a 45-yard strike to Carnell Tate giving the Buckeyes a 17-7 cushion with 3:41 left before halftime. 

He didn't take a sack all day and that wasn't because his offensive line was elite. In fact, the bigs up front were often leaky yet Sayin comfortably navigated the pocket, escaped it when necessary, kept his eyes downfield and delivered on the run with precision. 

I said after the Ohio game it wasn't out of the realm of possibility he could be a Heisman finalist and after yesterday, as he became the betting favorite, it would be more surprising if he wasn't a finalist. Long way to go but this kid's got the goods and then some. 

TWO COLD

Sayin is an elite passer, no doubt about it, but man it must be nice throwing passes to Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate every Saturday. 

The duo lit up the Nittany Lions yesterday, combining for 11 catches on 11 targets for 247 yards and three touchdowns, the second time this season all of Sayin's attempts to the duo in a game were caught (Grambling: 10-for-10, 188 yards, 3 TD). 

The output also marked just the 12th time in school history that a pair of receivers went for at least 120 yards in the same game. 

For his part, Smith hauled in six balls for 123 yards and a two scores. All six catches went for at least 11 yards, either moving the chains or scoring points. This ridiculous one-handed snag of a tipped ball midway through the fourth quarter rounded out the scoring. 

Tate was his typical big-play self recording five receptions for 124 yards - good for a hefty  24.4 yards per catch - boosted by snags of 45 and 57 yards. 

The less-heralded but equally effective weapon, Tate now has four 100-yard games this season and two in a row. 

The man's body control and ability to adjust to the football are elite traits. 

Through eight games, their stats are nearly identical with Smith bettering Tate by just 14 yards (725 to 711) and two touchdowns (9 to 7). Smith does have 16 more catches (55 to 39) but Tate's grabs go for bigger chunks of yards (18.2 to 13.2).  

Sayin, Smith and Tate are so good that I'd almost be fine with OSU abandoning the run considering how mid the rushing attack is compared to the passing game. I'm kidding, I think. 

READ THE (RB) ROOM 

Speaking of the run game, Ryan Day and Brian Hartline gave four backs carries with the first team offense following a season-trend of going deep into the RB room. 

I'm on board with that approach if it is to manage mileage on the clear best running back in that room with an intention of streamlining the carry distribution down the stretch. 

Bo Jackson is clearly the team's best ball carrier and he showed it again yesterday with 13 carries for 105 yards (8.1 ypc) including a 51-yard burst.

Meanwhile the trio of CJ Donaldson, Isaiah West and James Peoples received 15 carries, turning them into 49 yards (3.3 ypc) with a Donaldson fumble deep in OSU's own territory leading to a Penn State touchdown. 

Donaldson did show again he can be a solid short yardage guy when he gets his pads down low and runs behind them but for some reason, he doesn't do that with high regularity. 

Despite his obvious talent as both a runner and pass catcher, entering yesterday's game, Jackson earned just 36% of the carries amassed by the Donaldson, Jackson, Peoples, West quartet 68-of-189) but generated 44% of the yards (433-of-988).

Jackson also has nine of the 20 chunk runs (10+ yards) generated by the quartet versus Power Four opponents thus far and he also has four receptions of at least 15 yards while the other three backs have combined for zero. 

Again, I'm working under the assumption the braintrust is focused on keeping the true freshman Jackson fresh for the stretch run because the production metrics make it clear who should be lined up at tailback the vast majority of the time in upcoming matchup games.  

PATRICIA >>> KNOWLES

Even as Penn State imploded last month and came to town out of the playoff race with a backup quarterback and interim head coach, Ohio State fans and likely many players and coaches still had this game circled as it meant a matchup former OSU DC Jim Knowles.  

His replacement, Matt Patricia, had Penn State in a blender for much of the afternoon, as the OSU defense held the Nittany Lions to 200 yards of total offense - their lowest output against the Buckeyes since 2005. 

Penn State, featuring very talented backs in Kaytron Allen and Nick Singleton did manage 95 sack adjusted rushing yards but on just 3.5 yards per carry and when you do throw in sacks, the Lions finished with 55 rushing yards on 1.8 per try. 

They really only had one legit scoring drive - a 15-play, 75-yard march cutting Ohio State's lead to 10-7 with 6:18 left in the second quarter - with the other touchdown coming four plays after Donaldson's fumble gave Penn State the ball at the OSU 13. 

Entering the second half with just a 17-14 lead, Patricia's defense dominated from there allowing zero points and 60 total yards on 2.1 per play. And that's with 53 of those yards coming on Penn State's meaningless final possession with OSU up 24 before Caleb Downs picked off Ethan Grunkemeyer in the end zone. 

Including four OSU sacks, Penn State had 12 carries for -21 yards over the final 30 minutes. 

Arvell Reese was in his usual make-scouts-drool mode posting 12 stops, 2.5 TFL and a sack while Kenyatta Jackson Jr. played his best game of the season with four tackles, 2.5 TFL and 2.0 sacks. Kayden McDonald did Kayden McDonald things logging eight stops. 

On the other side of the ball, Knowles' defense gave up 38 points and 480 yards on 8.7 yards per play and 15.8 yards per pass completion. I'm guessing he was glad to get out of town even faster than he did after Ohio State won last season's national title.  

RESPECTABLE RED ZONE OFFENSE

Entering yesterday's contest ranked outside the top-40 in red zone scoring and red zone touchdown rate, facing a Penn State defense ranked outside the top-50 in both metrics, Ohio State had itself a day going 5-for-5 in the red zone with four touchdowns and a field goal. 

Ohio State's averaging starting red zone position was the Penn State 11-yard line, with two trips starting at the 4 and 8-yard lines, respectively, which was great for scoring but likely didn't help the run game metrics too much. 

The first trip, from the Penn State 15, saw a 1-yard run preceded a 14-yard touchdown pass to Smith. The second visit, commencing from the PSU 19, saw three rushes for five yards and 2-of-3 passing for 10 yards resulting in a chip shot field goal. 

The third trip launched from the 4-yard line and it took three straight carries to break the plane, the last a 1-yard plunge from Donaldson. The fourth trip started at the Nittany Lions' 8-yard line. The run game got OSU to the 1 on two carries before Christian Bennett hauled in a pass from Sayin in the back corner of the end zone for six. 

Finally, the last trip began at the PSU 11 and took just one play to score as Smith made his fancy one-handed grab of a tipped Sayin pass over the middle at the 1 and spun into the end zone for the game's final score. 

Overall on snaps from inside the red zone, Ohio State ran it nine times for 17 yards and a touchdown and completed 5-of-6 passes for 26 yards and three scores. 

I'm still not supremely confident in the run game from anywhere on the field, most notably inside the red zone but man the passing game looks pretty good from everywhere. 

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Ohio State Defeats Penn State, 38-14, for Ninth Straight Win over Nittany Lions

Jeremiah Smith celebrating his touchdown

Matt Patricia’s Defense Continues to Shine While Jim Knowles’ Penn State Defense Falters in Ohio State’s Win Over Former Defensive Coordinator

Matt Patricia
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