Hot 11: Post Nebraska

I was not sure if we were going to have a Hot 11 for this week.

Sure, we had one coming off of the 32-31 loss to Oregon, but there were more “good feelings” coming out of that game rather than a “win” over Nebraska.

There is just a strange fog that has covered Buckeye Nation, even coming off of a 21-17 win.

With a lot of issues going into Penn State week, the Buckeyes are still sitting at 6-1 and control their own destiny. How did the close (and ugly) win impact our Hot 11? Especially in a week where we had more votes than any week prior.

Rank	Player	Details	Last
1.	Caleb Downs (98)	Downs climbs up to the top of the rankings with the voters. Downs just makes plays and while they don’t jump off the stats page, a rewatch of the game shows that Downs is quite possibly the best open field tackler on the team. Going against Penn State this week, he will be important with two great backs.	6th
2.	Jeremiah Smith (90)	There needs to be questions asked about why Smith was only targeted four times in the game. He had three receptions for 70 yards and a touchdown. Smith continues to put up numbers each and every week but have our voters grown immune to his numbers?	1st
3.	Will Howard (72)	Howard continues to climb in the rankings despite only throwing the ball 16 times, completing 13 passes for three touchdowns and 221 yards. Part of the numbers breaks down to the fact that Ohio State only had 47 plays of total offense.	T-4th
4.	Emeka Egbuka (67)	Egbuka slides a little bit in a game where he only had three receptions for 20 yards and no scores. Emeka led the team with five targets, but only five pass catches were targeted for the entire game.	2nd
5.	Tyleik Williams (65)	Williams had a big game with four tackles, two for loss and a sack. Sometimes being interior line, either defense or offense, it is easy to lose track of a player, but there is no doubt how important Williams is for the defense, especially against a team that is looking to run between the tackles.	7th
6.	Carnell Tate (44)	Tate really had his first breakout game of the season with four receptions (on four targets) with 102 yards and a touchdown. There really is not a team around that would have a player of Tate’s caliber as the third option. That is just how deep the Buckeyes are at WR.	11th
7.	Seth McLaughlin (41)	Seth has just been solid at center and any snap troubles are a distant memory. But the question is, what will the line look like moving forward with the season loss of Josh Simmons and what looks like a potentially long miss with Zen Michalski. Is there any scenario where McLaughlin moves to guard to lock down one of those spots?	3rd
8.	Cody Simon (34)	Simon enters the list with an eight tackle game with three of those for loss. While there are still some scheme questions about the defense, but it is obvious that Simon needs to be on the field more, not less.	NR
9.	JT Tuimoloau (23)	This was JT’s warm-up game for the upcoming Penn State game, an opponent that he always plays out of his head against. He had two tackles for loss and a sack against Nebraska, so he is coming in on a bit of a high note.	NR
T-10.	Jordan Hancock (20)	Hancock has shown the ability to play multiple positions in the Ohio State secondary. In the Nebraska game, Hancock forced a fumble and had an interception. With Lathan Ransom still week-to-week, the Buckeyes really need to lean on Hancock in a larger role.	NR
T-10.	Josh Simmons (20)	Simmons is starting to slide down the list as his season is over. It will be important for him to peer lead his lineman teammates. There is no understating how important this loss is to the Buckeyes.	T-4th