Ohio State Struggles With Weather At Northwestern: “I’ve Never Been Around Conditions Like This”
Ohio State’s players and coaches prepared all week to face inclement weather, but they didn’t necessarily expect the heavy rain and wind gusts to play the role it did in Saturday’s 21-7 win at Northwestern.
“I’ve never been around conditions like this,” head coach Ryan Day said after the game. “I don’t know what the numbers show, but there must have been 30-mile-per-hour winds. If you’ve ever tried playing golf in 30-mile-per-hour winds, it’s hard to get off the tee, forget throwing a football.”
The Buckeyes, who came into the game averaging 317.8 yards per game through the air, finished with just 76 yards passing, a career-low for redshirt sophomore quarterback C.J. Stroud, who completed just 10-of-26 passes on the afternoon.
They struggled to run the ball until the second half, as well, when redshirt sophomor running back Miyan Williams’ 27-yard run put them ahead for good. Prior to that drive, he had just 28 yards on 13 carries but finished with 111 yards and two touchdowns on 26 carries, including a two-yard score with 4:21 left.
“We tried throwing the ball, but it was almost impossible into the wind,” Day said. “When you’re playing against someone who knows you’re not throwing the ball, they put two extra guys in the box say, ‘What are you going to do?’ … You either read it or throw it, and one of those was out of the picture.”
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This marked the third straight game in which Ohio State looked sluggish offensively, but unlike Iowa and Penn State the last two weeks, Northwestern came into Saturday with the nation’s 110th-best rushing defense and should have offered little resistance on the ground.
Whether those issues can be attributed to the weather or are indicative of a larger problem within the Buckeyes’ offense remains to be seen, especially with Michigan looming in three weeks. But Day was just happy to get through this game one way or another.
“I can tell you this right now, I’m glad this game’s over with,” Day said, noting you can learn a lot from Saturday. “The first thing is that we found a way to win a hard game like this. It wasn’t about anything other than winning the game.
“When you get into November and get into certain games, it’s how can you win by ‘X’ number of points. This had nothing to do with that. When you’re dealing with these kinds of conditions, it’s impossible … It was a very challenging day, but again, I’m glad this is behind us.”
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