COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Buckeyes established a new school record with their 23rd straight victory and clinched a spot in the Big Ten Championship game with a 42-14 win over Indiana in the final game of at Ohio Stadium.
The celebration will last only until Sunday when a week of preparations begin for Ohio State’s season finale at Michigan (Noon/ABC).
“We talk about how to…make sure we are a purpose-driven team and our purpose comes to a head next week in Ann Arbor,” head coach Urban Meyer said.
That game will be followed by an appearance in the conference title game against Michigan State. The Buckeyes won the Leaders Division crown last season but were barred from participating in the championship game.
Winning both games might not help Ohio State’s chances of climbing far enough up in the BCS standings to qualify for the national title game, but it’s a sure thing that it wouldn’t hurt.
Saturday’s game was played in cold, gusty conditions with occasional heavy snow squalls that made throwing the football a challenge, quarterback Braxton Miller shredded the porous Hoosier defense with his legs more often than with his arm. He led all rushers with 144 yards, including the game’s first breakout play, a 41-yard run on the Buckeyes’ opening drive; and a 17-yard twisting, squirming third-down run that preceded his first scoring pass of the game, which came late in the in the third quarter.
“The weather did have an impact,“ Meyer admitted. “But we’re a good rushing team. I think we rushed again for 300 yards…It’ll be harsh for me to say that wasn’t the best [Miller] has ever run.”
“[Wide receiver] Philly [Brown] wasn’t really healthy for this game. So he sat out just a little bit. We just wanted to keep our defense off the field, just run out the clock a little bit,” Miller said.
Miller ran for two touchdowns in the first half, streaking 37 yards to the right pylon and flipping into the end zone with 8:11 remaining in the first quarter and somersaulting across the goal line to land on his head at the end of an end-around – called a “Jazzy,” because Kenny Guiton (“Kenny G”) lined up at quarterback and pitched the ball to Miller who headed right and flipped into the end zone to give the Buckeyes (11-0, 7-0) a 21-0 lead with 8:36 left in the second quarter.
Senior running back Carlos Hyde gained 117 yards and went over the 1,000-yard rushing mark for the season (1,064) in the second quarter, the first back coached by Urban Meyer to achieve such a milestone.
Miller added 160 yards and two touchdowns on 11-of-17 passing.
The Buckeye defense kept th Hoosiers off the scoreboard for more than three-and-a-half quarters. Ryan Shazier set a career best with 20 tackles, including 10 solo stops and five tackles for loss
The Buckeyes jumped out to a 28-0 halftime lead on two touchdown runs each by Hyde and Miller.
The temperature at game time temp was around freezing, with wind chills in the upper teens and lower 20’s due to winds of around 18-20 mph.
Despite the conditions, Nate Sudfeld and Tre Roberson completed 32 of 53 pass attempts for 320 yards. The Hoosiers (4-7, 2-5) seemed to keep pace with Ohio State offensively, gaining 442 yards to the Buckeyes 471, running 36 more plays and controlling to ball for more than eight more minutes.
But they were unable to find the end zone, or even the open space between the goalpost uprights: Usually automatic, place kicker Mitch Ewald saw two of his attempts bounce off the uprights, caught by the Ohio Stadium winds.
The Hoosiers did not score a touchdown until the final six minutes of the game.