Ohio State thought it was going to get a second look at Nico Iamaleava, having defeated the quarterback in the College Football Playoff last season when he was at Tennessee, but the UCLA quarterback sat out on Saturday with a concussion, forcing first-time starter Luke Duncan into action. Duncan and the rest of the Bruins did not have a very fun time in Columbus, getting clobbered in a 48-10 affair that saw the Buckeyes flex their muscle on defense and on the ground offensively.
Here is the Good,
the Bad and the Ugly from Ohio State’s latest victory…
The Good
Run Game
Ohio State has not run the ball well this season, and after particularly lackluster rushing performances against Illinois and Wisconsin in back-to-back weeks, it was clear that something needed to change. The Buckeyes ran the ball 65 times against the Illini and the Wolverines for a combined 204 yards, good for only 3.1 yards per carry.
That mark over the course of a full season would have Ohio State ranked 129th nationally in rushing, and it is a far cry from Ohio State’s 4.99 yards per carry in 2024. Luckily for the Buckeyes, they knew they had a three-game stretch before Michigan (or a four-game stretch if you include a bad Penn State team) to work things out. That process has been a success to this point, as the ground game has been rapidly improving week over week.
Over the last three games, Ohio State has ran the ball 108 times for 556 yards — good for 5.15 yards per carry — with eight touchdowns. Those eight touchdowns match their total from their first six games against FBS opponents, and it has brought the Buckeyes all the way up to 35th nationally in rushing at 4.76 yards per carry overall.
Ohio State had its best rushing game of the season against UCLA, as Bo Jackson, Isaiah West and James Peoples combined for 215 yards on 29 carries (7.4 YPC) with four touchdowns. All three had their share of highlight plays, with Jackson and West each ripping off long runs of 30-plus yards and Peoples providing perhaps the highlight of the night as he hurdled over a defender to score a touchdown.
Jackson was especially impressive in this game across the board. The freshman recorded a season-high 112 yards on 15 carries (7.5 YPC) with a touchdown. It was Jackson’s fourth 100-yard rushing performance of the year, and he has now received double-digit carries in seven-straight games. He is clearly Ohio State’s top option out of the backfield, and he seems to be only getting better.
The Buckeyes were without CJ Donaldson in this game, who had been listed as questionable coming into the contest, but all three guys that did play had no problem picking up those short yardage plays that Donaldson is usually asked to get.
Defense
It feels as though we are started to get a bit jaded by this Ohio State defense, to the point where the Buckeyes allowing a late third quarter touchdown with half the backups in feels like a bit of a letdown.
Overall, Matt Patricia’s group was once again outstanding against UCLA. The Silver Bullets allowed only 50 total yards in the first half, holding the Bruins to a 1-of-7 mark on third and fourth down. With 10 points allowed on the night, all of which came in the game’s final 16 minutes, Ohio State continues to lead the country at 7.5 points allowed per game, which is four points better than the next best team (Indiana, 11.6).
When the Buckeyes still had their foot on the gas during the first three quarters, it never felt like UCLA even had a chance of scoring points. There wasn’t a ton going on in terms of havoc plays, with Ohio State not registering a single sack for the second game in a row after recording at least one per contest through the first eight games, but they kept everything in front of them and made life difficult for first-time starting QB Luke Duncan.
There were still a handful of standout performances, with Kenyatta Jackson firing out of a cannon for a big tackle for loss on a third-and-1 play and Caden Curry forcing a turnover on downs with a great stop on fourth-and-1. Overall, Sonny Styles led the way with seven tackles and a tackle for loss. The Buckeyes had five TFLs as a team, and held UCLA to 68 yards rushing on 2.7 yards per carry.
Special Teams
Never in a million years did I think we would find the special teams unit listed as part of the ‘Good’ section of a game recap, but here we are!
Ohio State had without a doubt its best special teams performance in several years, including of course a historic kick return touchdown by Lorenzo Styles. The defensive back fielded the kickoff inside the Buckeyes’ own end zone and took it more than 100 yards to the house for the score, negating UCLA’s only touchdown drive of the night.
It was the first kick return touchdown for Ohio State in 15 years, dating back to Jordan Hall’s return against Michigan in 2010. The Buckeyes have now broken more than a decades-long drought in both the kick and punt return game, with Caleb Downs having returned a punt for a score against Indiana last season.
Elsewhere on special teams, it was another good day for kicker Jayden Fielding, who nailed both of his field goal attempts of 41 and 33 yards. Fielding has now made each of his last six field goal attempts, which includes a career-long 49-yarder against Purdue last weekend.
The Bad
Miscommunication
There really wasn’t all too much to not like from an on-field standpoint in this game, as Ohio State dominated the majority of the night, but the Buckeyes did put together two incredibly sub-par drives to open up the second half.
Julian Sayin started the drive with back-to-back incomplete passes, with the first being a long throw over the middle to Mylan Graham that probably should have been caught. It was a great pass on target and the ball hit Graham in the hands, and while the defender was all over him trying to make a play, the former five-star prospect could have hauled it in.
UCLA then recorded its only sack of the night on third down as the Buckeyes were forced to punt.
Having ended the first half with an incompletion prior to the Buckeyes kicking a field goal, it marked the first time all season that Sayin had thrown three incomplete passes in a row — a remarkable statistic in its own right for the surgically accurate quarterback.
After stopping UCLA on downs and starting with the ball past midfield on their next possession, Ohio State proceeded to run backwards for two yards and complete two short passes for a combined eight yards to set up a fourth-and-4. Sayin’s fourth down pass to Max Klare was off-target, and the Buckeyes turned it over on downs.
Without Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate on the field, Sayin was throwing to a virtually entire new group of receivers, and it was clear that the timing and communication was just a bit off. It didn’t wind up mattering in the long run, and Ohio State responded with a touchdown drive on its next possession, but things obviously weren’t running as smoothly without the nation’s top two wide receivers on the field.
The Ugly
Injuries
Speaking of Smith and Tate, their injuries are really the storyline coming out of this game.
Carnell Tate, who was held out of the game against Purdue for ‘precautionary’ reasons a week ago, did not dress on Saturday against UCLA. Making matters worse, Jeremiah Smith also found himself listed as ‘questionable’ on the injury report, and while the star wideout did play, he was only on the field for the first few drives and was walking with a very noticeable limp on the sideline the rest of the night.
Ryan Day did not seem all too concerned with either player’s injury, and expects both of them to be back at the very least by the time Ohio State plays Michigan in the final game of the season, but it is obviously a bit worrisome to have your best two offensive players injured heading into the final stretch.
With Rutgers on the docket next week, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if neither guys suits up for that game in hopes of being fully healthy for a battle in Ann Arbor on Nov. 29. Even if both are almost fully healed up in time for the Scarlet Knights, I don’t think its worth the risk to play either of them in a game that shouldn’t be all too tricky for Ohio State to navigate.
