COLUMBUS – To Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer, his team’s 38-17 win over Indiana Saturday came down to two plays, neither of which put points on the scoreboard.
It was a 91-yard kickoff return by Parris Campbell just before halftime and a guts-versus-guts four-down stand by the Buckeye defense with their backs to their own end zone in the fourth quarter that Meyer called the “plays of the game.”
“That’s why we beat Indiana.”
As they have been known to do on occasion, the Hoosiers (3-2, 1-1 Big Ten) came to a game against Ohio State as a heavy underdog but refused to play like one, challenging the No. 2 ranked Buckeyes’ (5-0, 2-0) defense and exploiting offensive miscues in front of 107,420 fans before finally heading back home with another loss in a one-sided series.
Completing only nine passes in the game, eight of them in the first and fourth quarters, Ohio State quarterback J.T. Barrett carried the ball a career-high 26 times, gaining 137 yards and a touchdown while throwing only one scoring pass, to Dontre Wilson with 3:51 remaining in the game and the Buckeyes already leading 31-17.
Indiana, whose offense was second only to OSU’s in the Big Ten coming into the game, found itself trailing by two touchdowns three times in the game and was able to cut the margin to seven points twice but Ohio State found a way to widen the gap and keep the Hoosiers at ten-foot-pole length.
When the Buckeyes capped a 73-yard drive, highlighted by 22- and 27-yard runs by Curtis Samuel and Barrett, with Samuel’s five-yard touchdown run to take a 17-3 lead with 3:32 left in the second quarter, Richard Lagow efficiently steered the Hoosiers down the field on a seven-play 65-yard drive that included a 32-yard completion to Ricky Jones and ended with an 18-yard scoring strike to Mitchell Paige with 1:03 remaining before halftime.
Enough time for Ohio State to respond after Parris Campbell returned the kickoff 91 yards to the 6-yard line for Play of the Game Number One.
Barrett scored from five yards out with :34 left to send OSU to the locker room with a 24-10 lead.
Lagow, who completed 14 of 28 pass attempts for 182 yards and two touchdowns, opened the second half with a clock-devouring 89-yard drive that ended with a seven-yard touchdown pass to Danny Friend and Indiana was again within a touchdown.
But only until Mike Weber scored on a one-yard run with 3:38 left in the third to increase the margin back to 14.
And that set the stage for Play of the Game Number Two
After A’Shon Riggins picked off a Barrett pass and returned it to the OSU 10-yard line with 11:34 to play in the game, Indiana coach Kevin Wilson decided to go for it on 4th and 1 from the Buckeye 5-yard line instead of kicking a field goal. Nick Bosa and Michael Hill stopped Devine Redding for a two-yard loss, foiling what turned out to be the Hoosiers’ last best chance to mount a comeback.
In five games this season, Ohio State has yet to allow a rushing tochdown, the only defensive unit in the FBS that can make that claim.
The Buckeyes showed up with a characteristic case of the first-half slows, Barrett coughing up the football on the opening drive at OSU’s 29 which set up a 22-yard Griffin Oakes field goal.
With the score tied 3-3 in the second quarter, Ohio State got some help from the officials who ruled that Lagow fumbled the ball when he was hit on a rollout by Tyquan Lewis. Jalyn Holmes recovered at the Indiana 9-yard line and Weber scored two plays later.
The Buckeyes never trailed after that and the Hoosiers never caught up.
Weber, the Big Ten’s leading rusher, finished with 71 yards. Samuel, 11th in the nation in all-purpose yards, had 82 and did not catch any passes.
“J.T. had too many carries, Curtis needs to carry the ball more early,” Meyer summed up. “We won by 21. It’s much easier to fix when you win than when you lose.”
Ohio State travels to Wisconsin next Saturday (8:00 p.m.)