COLUMBUS, Ohio — In a bounce-back game for Ohio State, the Buckeyes did everything they wanted to do. Well, all that they could do.
Coming off a 24-23 loss at No. 1 Texas, Ohio State needed a response. It needed to get back to playing the way it expected to play, and there wasn’t much doubt about how the Buckeyes wanted Saturday against Kent State to look.
They wanted to be physical. They wanted to run the football. They wanted to play fast on defense. And, most importantly, they wanted to win. Ohio State did all of that in a 59-3 win over Kent State Saturday at Ohio Stadium.
The Buckeyes finished with 527 yards of total offense, including 382 through the air and 145 on the ground. The defense held Kent State to just 97 total yards. Ohio State also scored touchdowns on each of its first four possessions.
So, in that sense, this was exactly the response the Buckeyes were looking for. But there is only so much Ohio State could do to wash away what happened last week. Blow Kent State out of the water? Sure. But the reality is that it doesn’t mean much moving forward by itself.
Kent State isn’t Texas. Ohio State wasn’t going to learn everything it needed to know about itself against a team it was expected to handle comfortably. There is no way to recreate the pressure, speed or level of competition the Buckeyes faced in Austin.
What Ohio State could do was respond to the loss. And it did.
“I think you’re looking for a response out of a group of guys coming off of last week, which I thought we did. Regardless of the opponent, you want clean execution on offense, and you want a bunch of running and hitting on defense. You want energy and passion and running around, which I thought we did,” Ryan Day said after the game.
There was plenty to like. The run game, which struggled to consistently establish itself against Texas, was efficient Saturday.
Bo Jackson carried the ball 11 times for 73 yards and a touchdown, averaging 6.6 yards per carry. Ja’Kobi Jackson added 47 yards and two touchdowns on eight carries, giving the two backs 120 yards and three touchdowns combined.
Julian Sayin was also efficient, completing 18 of 22 passes for 241 yards and two touchdowns. Brandon Inniss caught four passes for 78 yards, including a 49-yard Hail Mary touchdown on the final play of the first half.
Jeremiah Smith finished with five catches for 85 yards, doing his damage in the first half before Ohio State turned to other players in the second half. He also broke Ohio State’s career receiving-yards record, moving to 2,958 yards and passing Michael Jenkins’ previous mark of 2,898.
ight different Buckeyes caught passes.
The defense was just as dominant.
Kent State managed only 97 total yards, and Ohio State created turnovers throughout the game. Riley Pettijohn recorded his first career interception and led the Buckeyes with five tackles. Payton Pierce recovered a fumble in the second half, and Jamir Perez later returned a fumble for a touchdown.
That’s the kind of physical, aggressive football Ohio State wanted to see.
It was also the kind of game where younger players could get meaningful snaps in a game that was never really in doubt.
“For some of the younger players, another opportunity to get on the field and build some confidence going into conference play,” Day said.
And that part matters. Ohio State is now 2-1, with its only loss coming on the road against the No. 1 team in the country. It has also now handled its two nonconference opponents with ease. But there is still a little bit of an unsettled feeling around this team. That’s not because Ohio State didn’t play well Saturday. It did. It’s because the questions that came out of Texas don’t disappear because Kent State couldn’t keep up.
Consistency is still a work in progress.
Even in a 59-3 game, Ohio State had stretches it will want to clean up. Day pointed to two drives at the end of the first half where the Buckeyes stumbled around in the red zone before finally getting the Hail Mary touchdown to Inniss.
The issues aren’t suddenly gone. But the response was there and that’s what Ohio State needed Saturday.
It needed to look like itself again. It needed to play with energy. It needed to run the football and play physical defense. It needed to get some younger players on the field and give the team a chance to move forward rather than spend another week dwelling on what happened in Texas. It did all of that.
Now comes the part that will actually tell Ohio State more about where it stands.
Kent State could give Ohio State confidence. It could give the Buckeyes some momentum.
What it couldn’t give them was an answer to everything that happened in Austin.
Ohio State couldn’t change what happened at Texas. It could respond.
And now, with conference play beginning, it gets its next chance to show whether that response was the start of something or simply what it was supposed to do against Kent State.
