Mood:
No tricks, just treats #GoBuckeyes pic.twitter.com/O1bZkTFUPd
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) November 1, 2020
Word of the Day: Wend.
KINGS OF THE NORTH. Ohio State absolutely runs the Big Ten, and that's never been more clear.
Perhaps no stat reflects Ohio State's dominance since Meyer arrived in Columbus more than this: The Buckeyes are 23-1 against Penn State, Wisconsin and Michigan since 2012. The Nittany Lions beat Ohio State 24-21 on Oct. 22, 2016, with the help of a Grant Haley touchdown off a blocked field-goal attempt.
...
The ugly truth is Ohio State's dominance is every bit as impressive as what Clemson has done in the ACC and Alabama has done in the SEC. And it's starting to rip the soul out of the rest of the Big Ten. Nobody is in the Buckeyes' talent zip code, and their next recruiting class is currently ranked No. 2 according to 247Sports' Composite rankings.
To be clear, this isn't Ohio State's problem. It's a problem for everybody else in the Big Ten. There is no end in sight in the 2020s, and the competition might need to rethink its attack off the field. That isn't limited to Penn State, Wisconsin and Michigan at this point.
How many more unfair fights do you need to see as proof?
At some point in the aftermath of Saturday night's game, it hit me – that was the best team on Ohio State's regular-season schedule.
It wasn't a tune-up game against a hapless non-conference opponent, it wasn't a Big Ten game against an overmatched Rutgers or Maryland. The game the Buckeyes lowkey sleepwalked through, left at least 20 points on the table and only won by 13 points was against Penn State.
We're talking about this game like it was another early-season matchup where the Buckeyes looked good but not perfect and clearly have plenty to work on going forward. And that's all true to a point, but like, this was as tough as it gets.
This was the toughest game on the schedule, Ohio State's big regular-season test. And the Buckeyes just coasted. That's hilarious to me.
JERRY JINX. Justin Fields almost had an Ohio State record all by his lonesome, but he got hit with the SID version of the announcer jinx.
Justin Fields has just tied the school record for consecutive completions for a season: 16. He completed his final nine passes vs. Nebraska and is 7-for-7 tonight. J.T. Barrett (2017).
— Jerry Emig (@BuckeyeNotes) November 1, 2020
Seconds later, Fields missed Garrett Wilson in the corner of the end zone. It was almost poetic.
It's fine though because there is not a doubt in my mind that he's going to have a chance to break this record again. In all honesty, based on how this season's started, I think it would be a disappointment if he didn't.
KEPT HIM CLEAN. The Buckeyes played probably the best pass-rushing duo they'll see all season with Shaka Toney and Jason Oweh in the Penn State trenches, but they were a total non-factor on Saturday night because Thayer Munford and Nicholas Petit-Fere were damn-near perfect.
Ohio State OT duo: Thayer Munford & Nicholas Petit-Frere vs Penn St
— PFF College (@PFF_College) November 1, 2020
37 pass-block snaps
0 pressures allowed
0 sacks pic.twitter.com/lnteKWZAtf
There was, of course, that one time Justin Fields got hit like from behind a damn tackling dummy by some fellow running full speed, unimpeded straight into him, but the sad thing is that was actually Fields' fault for not identifying the rush either presnap or postsnap.
THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT. I'm sure it sucks for Penn State fans to see their best defensive player in years Tweeting from his couch during the biggest game of the season.
But it's gotta be damn near rage-inducing to see said player hyping up the opposing quarterback as he shreds your team's secondary like a little kid with safety scissors.
Justin fields ... thats the tweet
— Micah Parsons (@MicahhParsons11) November 1, 2020
For what it's worth, I'd bet my son's life that having him on the field wouldn't have led to a different result in this game, but it's also hilarious that there's some alternate timeline where *both* of these players are in Penn State uniforms right now.
YOU GOT THE WRONG GUY. Sean Nuernberger was no more responsible for Ohio State's kicking woes than I was on Saturday, but that didn't stop folks from feeding the Google machine "Ohio State kicker" and firing off some hateful DMs.
Yeah love getting roasted for sitting on the couch pic.twitter.com/XoWfL1JQN5
— Sean Nuernberger (@Sean4Heisman1) November 1, 2020
The larger issue here is that there are folks entering a kicker's DMs to complain to him about a gambling loss in the first place, but if that's what's going to happen I'm at least glad those messages arrived in the inbox of the now-ripped former kicker who could break their bodies like twigs.
I think Sean should just become the specialists' official complaint department.
BAD, *AND* ARROGANT. Michigan lost to little brother on Saturday and Antjuan Simmons, a former four-star Buckeye commit who grew up in Ann Arbor, was one of the most dominant players on either side of the ball.
But Joe Milton, who threw the ball 50 times and somehow only led his team to 21 points, was unimpressed.
The disrespect pic.twitter.com/K0ZyBcZ05F
— Takes (@SpartyMyTake) November 1, 2020
I feel like you should have to complete a pass of longer than five yards through the air to act like this after a game your team lost, but you do you! I look forward to you glaringly overlooking an Ohio State defender come December.
SONG OF THE DAY. "We Can Try" by Between the Trees.
NOT STICKING TO SPORTS. Witnesses mistook a man dumping a human head in a recycling bin in Spain for a Halloween joke... An asteroid believed to be worth $10,000 quadrillion is observed through the Hubble Telescope... A mortuary services worker allegedly used a body bag to steal items from a dead man's home... A man researches time travel to "correct a horrible mistake" after his fiancée was found dead... Remember that time a nuclear weapons bunker blew up in San Antonio?...
