Key Takeaways from Ohio State vs. Rutgers
Reflecting back on what we saw last night at Ohio Stadium, here are my biggest takeaways from Ohio State's win over Rutgers:
***Every time Justin Fields competes, he's must watch TV. I mean he put on an absolute show on Saturday. He threw passes with great velocity and others with considerable touch. He made good decision after good decision. He's now three games into the season and he's thrown 11 incompletions ... and 11 touchdown passes. Is that any good?!
While he made a number of plays last night that you could consider stand outs, the two that most impressed me were the ones where he calmly dodged a defender that was flying at him in the pocket (especially this one).
***Reflecting back on it, I'm actually not surprised that the second half went the way it did. The Buckeyes mauled Rutgers for 30 minutes on both sides of the ball, late on a Saturday night in an empty stadium. Considering that most of the Buckeyes probably had it cross their minds that the starters may not play much in the second half and the outcome of the game was never in jeopardy, I'm actually not that surprised that Ohio State took its foot off the gas (even if it was unintentional).
The missed tackles in the second half I think can be chalked up to a lack of focus. That third quarter was part gimmicky, part entertaining, part annoying. The Buckeyes were fooled on a number of trick plays, and the many of the ones they were ready for, they didn't tackle properly. On the plus side, Rutgers put so many things on tape for Ohio State that I'm sure they'll address them in practice and correct them
***This is very specific, but I thought Baron Browning and Pete Werner played extremely fast last night. I was really impressed with the linebacking corps.
This wasn't the kind of game where you'd expect Ohio State to rack up a bunch of sacks and pressures. Rutgers got the ball out of the quarterbacks' hands too quickly. But I thought the defensive line played well in the first half and the linebackers were outstanding.
***Greg Schiano called the Buckeyes the "measuring stick" in the Big Ten. I couldn't agree more - it's been that way for many years now and there really hasn't been another team anywhere close, consistently. Here's his full quote.
"We played the measuring stick in our league, in the Big Ten conference, and we didn't quite measure up," Schiano said postgame. "But I thought we did some good things. Unfortunately in the first half, we made some mistakes that are hard to overcome when you play a team like that. But I thought our kids continued to chop the whole game. I thought our coaches, they didn't perform or coach very well in the first half. In the second half, they continued to chop and kept playing and some things went our way."
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Stats That Matter, Highlights, Photo Gallery from Ohio State's Win over Rutgers
Ohio State Upends Relentless Rutgers
Justin Fields Throws 50th Career Touchdown Pass as a Buckeye
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