On a day where Ohio State was missing both Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate, the Buckeyes’ offense looked very much like it was missing both Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate. In what was obviously a big
time look-ahead spot for Ryan Day’s group with The Game looming in a week’s time, it was a bit of a sloppy effort for Ohio State — at least in the first half.
Luckily, the opponent was an incredibly overmatched Rutgers squad, and so the game was never really in doubt.
Here is the Good, the Bad and the Ugly from the Buckeyes’ latest victory…
The Good
Defense
While focus and execution were a problem for the offense at times on Saturday, the defense did not look any worse for wear. Ohio State completely stymied what is a pretty decent Rutgers offense for the entirety of the game, allowing only a single field goal before garbage time — which came on a drive that featured a phantom pass interference flag on a fourth down that would have ended the possession.
With the starters on the field through the game’s first three quarters, the Buckeyes allowed 70 total yards and three points. Athan Kaliakmanis and the rest of the Rutgers offense had absolutely no answers for Matt Patricia’s defense, which racked up four sacks, six tackles for loss and forced a turnover on a sack fumble. Davison Igbinosun also would have had an interception had it not been wiped off by a penalty along the defensive line.
It was an especially impressive day for Caden Curry, who seemed to completely take over the game at times. Curry made the biggest defensive play of the contest, stripping the ball away from Kaliakmanis for a sack-fumble and recovering the ball himself to set Ohio State up at the goal line. Overall, Curry racked up six tackles, two tackles for loss and two sacks, plus the forced fumble.
Igbinosun looked great in coverage, Caleb Downs left his mark on the game with a perfectly timed blitz for the middle for a sack, and defensive tackles Kayden McDonald and Tywone Malone were a force up the middle in stopping the run.
Bo Jackson
Ohio State has clearly found its RB1, and this three-game stretch against poor rushing defenses has allowed Bo Jackson to shine.
It was another huge day for the freshman, running for 110 yards on 19 carries (5.8 yards per carry) with two touchdowns. Jackson also caught a screen pass that he took for 14 yards. The Buckeyes’ lead back showcased some impeccable footwork against the Scarlet Knights, making guys miss and picking up extra yards in the process. Impressively, eight of Jackson’s 19 runs went for at least 10 yards.
After not playing in the season opener against Texas, Jackson rapidly worked his way up the depth chart as the year went along, and has now recorded five games with at least 100 yards rushing. During this stretch against Purdue, UCLA and Rutgers, Jackson has run for a 297 total yards on 6.19 yards per carry with three touchdowns.
Winning
Ohio State played a really bad first half of football, but even still held a 14-3 lead going into halftime. The Buckeyes were obviously not fully locked in between the injury trouble and The Game on the horizon, but despite all the outside noise and a level of execution that Ryan Day surely addressed in the locker room, they were never in danger of losing.
Ohio State has now played Rutgers 11 times since the Scarlet Knights joined the Big Ten, and they have won all 11. None of the matchups have even been particularly close, with the Buckeyes’ 35-16 victory in Piscataway in 2023 the smallest margin of victory in the series, which began in 2014.
The Bad
Fumbles
One of the most glaring results of Ohio State’s lack of focus and execution was in the ball security department, where the Buckeyes fumbled the ball twice.
The first was a pretty brutal fumble by Jackson on Ohio State’s opening possession.
The running back did an excellent job of getting the Buckeyes down to the goal line in the first place, picking up 51 of the 73 total yards on the drive. However, while attempting to punch it in for a score, Jackson lost the ball, and Rutgers recovered in the end zone for a touchback.
The second fumble came on Ohio State’s first possession of the second half. Max Klare caught a crossing route for a 12-yard pickup, but lost the ball at the end of his route. Luckily James Peoples was right there waiting to fall on it to avoid the turnover.
Only one of the fumbles proved costly, but the lack of ball security for the Buckeyes was not something we have seen from them all season long. Hopefully it was just a small blip in a game where the only goal was to get in, try to stay healthy, and win by any score, regardless of how it looked.
Personnel
Speaking of how things looked, some of the personnel decisions for Ohio State on Saturday were… odd, to say the least.
With Smith and Tate on the shelf, we expected to see a ton of the young, talented receivers on the roster among the likes of Mylan Graham, Bryson Rodgers and even maybe freshman Phillip Bell. Instead, we got a steady diet of walk-on David Adolph.
Nothing against Adolph personally, but it was weird to see the Ohio State coaching staff elect not to give its underclassmen valuable reps, especially as the passing game looked incredibly out of sync in the first half. Senior day could have played a role in it, but it was clear it had nothing to do with injury concerns as both Graham and Rodgers were on the field towards the end of the game.
On top of that, the Buckeyes’ usage of Lincoln Kienholz was a bit puzzling. Putting him in there on third or fourth-and-short with some kind of option run play would be understandable, but on several occasions Kienholz was thrust into action seemingly at random and asked to make some tough throws. On one of them in particular, Kienholz threw the ball way behind a wide open Brandon Inniss, who nearly injured himself on the play.
Late in the third quarter with Ohio State up big, Day was subbing Kienholz and Sayin back-and-forth for seemingly no real reason, especially as Sayin’s plays at that point were only handing the ball off to the running backs.
None of it wound up mattering all that much, but it made everything feel a bit more disjointed.
The Ugly
Injuries
Obviously our attention now turns to Ohio State’s health ahead of its meeting with Michigan in Ann Arbor next weekend.
We don’t really know the full status of either Jeremiah Smith or Carnell Tate. Smith was clearly hobbled against UCLA, and so it was expected he would sit out against Rutgers to rest up a bit, but Tate missed the Purdue game three weeks ago for ‘precautionary reasons’, and has now missed three-straight games.
It is worth noting that both were at the game against Rutgers in street clothes, and neither was moving with any sort of limp or wearing any brace. Ohio State needs to have both of those guys on the field on Nov. 29 to give itself the best possible chance of finally knocking off its rival after four-straight losses, but we probably won’t hear any further updates ahead of time.
The only other injury of note from the game against the Scarlet Knights was to Lorenzo Styles, who appeared to hurt his shoulder making a tackle early in the contest. Styles was taken to the medical tent and was back on the sideline with his helmet in hand shortly after that, but did not return to the field. It is unclear whether that was as a precaution, but it is another name to keep an eye on.
