Ohio State Needs To Wake Up, Fast
I think that was the worst 30 minutes of football I can ever remember watching Ohio State play.
In case you live under a rock, the Ohio State Buckeyes are on serious upset alert in Evanston against the 1-7 Northwestern Wildcats, which have lost every game they’ve played since beating Nebraska in the season-opener.
Yes, the biggest storyline in the game was the awful weather. Winds were consistently blowing 30-35 mph with gusts up to 50 mph and it literally was raining sideways. It was atrocious.
But bad weather is not an excuse for how flat the Buckeyes were. They were 0-for-8 on third downs and C.J. Stroud was just 6-of-16 for 46 yards through the air. There were far too many plays in which Ohio State didn’t look interested in being there (on both sides of the ball).
The problem brewing here is Ohio State’s inability to run the ball effectively. This isn’t a weather problem … it’s the third game in a row out of the bye week that the Buckeyes have been brutal rushing the ball. They had two effective running plays the entire first half, which sprung them to a game-tying score. But otherwise, they ran it 14 times for 41 yards.
On a day where it’s obvious that an aerial attack isn’t going to get the job done, they need to get this figured out right now at halftime.
On the defensive side - on one hand, giving up only 7 points in the first half is normally a pretty good performance. But that’s a bit too surface-level thinking. The Silver Bullets played a little bit better in the second quarter, but they missed far too many tackles and allowed Northwestern to push them around.
The Buckeyes talked all off-season about how competitive stamina and building toughness was at the heart of their training. They wanted to prove in 2022 that they could be the toughest team in America.
It’s a good thing it’s a 60-minute game because at the half, they don’t look like a team worthy of a No. 2 national ranking.
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