Instant Observations: Buckeyes Handle the Wildcats at Wrigley

Ohio State started a little slow but quickly found its stride in the second quarter and put away an overmatched Northwestern team, 31-7, on Saturday afternoon at the Friendly Confines.

Lets get to the observations….

1. There is the potential for many feel good stories about this Ohio State team, but none will top today’s performance by Carnell Tate in his hometown of Chicago. Tate found the end zone twice, made another spectacular catch, and was the star of the show in front of his family and friends. A good person who has been through so much since arriving at Ohio State. Nobody would have blamed him for leaving or losing his passion, really one of the most inspirational stories I can remember around this program.

2. Building off Carnell’s performance, the Buckeyes are in a good place offensively right now. The diversity of targets in the passing game is a good thing that wasn’t necessarily there at the very beginning of the season. Each week we’re seeing guys other than Emeka Egbuka and Jeremiah Smith make major contributions and it’s only going to make this team harder to defend.

3. With Smith, I didn’t like that tackle on the play where he hurt his ankle. That was definitely an ankle lock and twist and there was absolutely no need to continue to grab and twist after he was clearly down. It was good that Smith re-entered the game, but he’s likely to be in more pain tonight than he was right after it happened. Hopefully nothing that would limit his impact in these big upcoming games.

4. The Buckeyes once again batted 1.000 in the red zone today. I cannot overstate how key these red zone stats are for the Buckeyes this year. Scoring touchdowns in the red zone is as big as any stat you will find in determining close/playoff type games.

5. Consider Sonny Styles officially FREE. Styles has been unleashed as the blitzer, pass-rusher he was born to be. Two more sacks today and his speed and athleticism brings a totally different dynamic to this team’s ability to get after the quarterback. Could very well be the X-Factor for this defense in a potential playoff run.

6. I can’t be too critical about this game. One, because it’s not a game that really requires a ton of critique, but also because I correctly predicted the final score of 31-7, so what could I really complain about when it played out as I thought it would?

But with that being said, the Buckeyes will need to get off to a better start these next two (three?) weeks. This has been a pattern, regardless of the strength of the opponent over the past several weeks. Good starts will be crucial down the stretch, especially in games against Indiana and Michigan where I think instilling some early doubt in their opponent could go quite a long way.

7. I like how the offensive staff managed Will Howard today. There was no need to run him a dozen times in this game and risk him being anything less than one-hundred percent for next week. They’ve put enough on tape the past couple of weeks to keep defenses honest. Today was a day to get out of this game as healthy as possible.

8. And I liked how Will Howard managed the game today. Protected the football, continued accuracy on the short and intermediate throws. Yes, some deep balls didn’t connect, but even his deep ball misses seem to be better than his misses early in the season. It feels like there is progress there. But, again, the important thing is for Howard to continue to manage the game well and protect the football and let the playmakers do the rest.

9. The Quinshon Judkins impact has been enormous and not just because he’s a great player. We have never seen Tre Henderson this healthy in November and it showed today where he looked fresh and explosive and ran as hard as I’ve ever seen him run at this point in the season. These guys and their ability to be interchangeable in the offense allows this room to be fully healthy in November instead of the MASH unit it has seemingly been every year around this time the past several years.

10. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by this game in terms of the environment. No nightmare scenarios with the walls. The turf looked to be in much better condition than what we’ve seen in previous games at Wrigley and the players seemed to genuinely enjoy it. I was skeptical, but they pulled it off.

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