Ohio State closed out its football season with a 24-7 win over Pac-12 champions Southern California. The Buckeyes did so with the help of a defense that forced critical mistakes by the Trojans and an offense that didn’t make those same kind of critical mistakes.
USC turned the ball over four times, leading to 21 Ohio State points. Three of those turnovers were committed by quarterback Sam Darnold, who fumbled the ball away twice and threw a pick-six interception. Darnold was also sacked eight times by a relentless OSU pass rush that kept Darnold off balance the entire game.
The Buckeyes took a 7-0 lead in the first quarter following a USC fumble that gave the Buckeyes the football on the 19-yard line. Five plays later OSU had a 7-0 lead.
The Buckeyes added 17 more points in the second quarter, 14 of them coming off of USC turnovers, to take a 24-0 lead. The Trojans got on the board late in the half when Buckeye punt returner K.J. Hill muffed a punt to give Southern Cal a short field.
The second half was a defensive struggle with both defenses pitching shutouts. USC moved the ball at times but was unable to score due to turnovers, sacks and a missed field goal.
Late in the game, OSU quarterback J. T. Barrett completed a pass to tight end Marcus Baugh. The completion made Barrett the career total offense leader in the Big Ten, a record formerly held by Purdue’s Drew Brees.
I came away from this game feeling like the Buckeyes are like the 1970s Steelers. Killer defense, adequate offense, a QB that is a winner, even if he is not a 6’6” bomber who can see the whole field. A lot of Steeler fans criticized Bradshaw.
Like with a Steelers win in a big game (if you can remember those days – or at least read about them), it would all be attributed to the Steel Curtain.
Steel Curtain, Silver Bullets… Same thing.
We’ll be a different team next year, and that’s fine. We need some O linemen. We need to figure out who our quarterback is. But it’s going to be fun to watch.
Happy the B1G is 5-0 so far.
Don’t know about all of you, but I’m definitely not in mourning today.
No surprises in this game. Amazing defensive line. Linebackers good but not great. Secondary good but awful at times(Ward being a turd didn’t help). Offensive line great. Running backs great. Receivers drop too many passes. The best QB in B1G history can’t throw and some coaches are not getting it done. Defense deserved the playoffs and the offense deserved the “dollar general bowl”.
Excited to see the offensive playbook opened up now. Meyer needs to play the best players next season instead of the players he likes the most. This team, had they played Clemson again would of lost 31-0 like before. Nothing changed offensively
Kevin- very nicely done! Now get ready for all the sunshine articles and head coaching comments about how “great” JT played, which ignore how BAD the offense looked (against a horrible USC defense by the way). Did anyone else start watching C-SPAN during the 3rd quarter, just to inject some excitement into your night? (that’s sarcasm, folks). GREAT job by the defense, and this game showed why we were left out of playoff.
Nailed it except the receivers should get credit for being great blockers.
The difference between this team and a the National Championship team? Total yards 255. The NC team Zeke Elliot 250 yards a game, Cardale Jones 250 yards a game for the last three games. As I said, I don’t live in Columbus (but I did a long time ago.) I buy the jerseys I wear on game day , for national Championships, and Heismans. I currently have jerseys for Maurice Clarrett, Troy Smith and Cradle Jones. There won’t be a number 16. It’s sad but as much as he did, in 4 years he won one conference Championship, he beat Michigan 4 times as a starter but Cardale Jones finished one of them and he was losing when he left the game this year. He never had the accuracy to throw deep balls or to the sidelines. He was Stanley Jackson, but played with defences that picked him up in many of his games, yet when the defence had a bad game, J.T. was never there to bail them out. In the end he was an average player who played for great teams, and in the end was the weakest link in the chain. He played with some of the best players in the NFL, practically a whole team of them offence and defence, and got credit for their excellence. But when I think of him in the future, it will be the ugly losses to Michigan State, Iowa, Penn State and Clemson, that I remember. He never came up big in the big ones.Games where the offence was so bad the defence spent most of the game on the filed and eventually wore down. He squashed the bugs, but he couldn’t slay the giants.
Some surprises. I definitely wouldn’t say the offensive line was great and the running game was non existent. One thing for sure is that this offense doesn’t belong anywhere near the playoffs! We were right where we belonged!