Urban Meyer isn’t going to win every game he coaches at OSU, but Saturday in Columbus the Buckeyes somehow delayed the inevitable for another week. Ohio State rallied behind their backup quarterback with eight points in the final seconds to tie Purdue, and went on to beat the Boilermakers in overtime 29-22, to stay unbeaten at 8-0. Braxton Miller was knocked out of the game after three quarters, and the Buckeyes trailed most of the day, but Kenny Guiton came on and managed to snatch improbable victory from what looked like certain defeat.

The junior from Houston connected with Chris Fields for a touchdown with three seconds on the clock, and then found tight end Jeff Heuerman for the 2-point conversion to send the game into overtime. Miller was slammed hard to the turf after a 35-yard run late in the 3rd quarter, and was hospitalized as doctors checked him for head, neck and shoulder injuries, but he was released Saturday evening, and was said by an OSU spokesman to be “symptom free”.

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The No. 7 Ohio State Buckeyes (7-0) will take the field this Saturday looking to establish, well, anything resembling a competent defense.

Quotes from the past week lean heavily toward the defense after giving up 49 points to the Indiana Hoosiers. Doing that on a basketball court is one thing, but allowing that to happen on a football field is the kind of thing that will force Urban Meyer into another unexpected retirement.

And just a reminder, the college basketball season is about three weeks away. Covering a postseason-eligible team will be a nice change of pace for yours truly.

Let’s get to the real reason you’re here. This week’s telling quotes are below.

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- Saturday, October 20, 2012

- Ohio Stadium - Columbus, OH

- Purdue at Ohio State

- 12:00 PM ET

- TV: ABC / ESPN2 -


Unbeaten Ohio State returns home Saturday for a noon date with the Purdue Boilermakers at the Horseshoe. The 7th-ranked Buckeyes will be trying to make it eight in a row under first-year head coach Urban Meyer, in the second of five straight games against Leaders Division opponents. OSU is 3-0 in Big Ten play, and leads the division race, the only title they are eligible to win in 2012.

Purdue (3-3, 0-2) comes in on the heels of consecutive humbling defeats at the hands of Michigan and Wisconsin, needing an upset win to salvage any hope of overtaking the Badgers and winning the Leaders’ spot in the Big Ten title game. Danny Hope’s Boilermakers own victories over Ohio State in two of the last three meetings, but both of those wins were in West Lafayette. They have knocked off the Buckeyes in Columbus just twice in the last 60 years, the last time coming in 1988.

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As if in honor of the start of college basketball practice, Ohio State and Indiana put up a hoops-type score Saturday night at Memorial Stadium in Bloomington. Moving up and down the field almost at will, the teams combined for 101 points and 1,059 yards of total offense. The Buckeyes, buoyed by another superlative effort from Braxton Miller, eventually prevailed 52-49. My DVR ran out of time before the end of the game, so I can’t be sure if the Hoosiers lost because they simply ran out of time or because Steve Alford missed a three-pointer at the buzzer.

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The initial BCS rankings of the 2012 season were released this week, and there is not a Big Ten team to be found in the Top 25. Ohio State, ranked No. 7 in the AP poll, is not eligible to be considered, as Recap readers are well aware, but the absence of a single Big Ten team is a first in the BCS era. Clearly the Big Ten’s seven year streak of placing a team in one of the BCS bowl games is in serious jeopardy.

Penn State is ineligible for the BCS as well, but if 4-2 Michigan (AP No. 23) wasn’t considered Top 25 material, then the 4-2 Nittany Lions, with their signature win over Northwestern, probably wouldn’t be included even if they weren’t under NCAA sanction. The Wolverines look like the most balanced team in the league at the moment, especially when you consider the Buckeyes’ recent defensive woes.

After three weeks of conference play, four Big Ten teams remain unbeaten in league action. OSU Is 3-0, while Iowa, Penn State and Michigan are 2-0. Still looking for their first Big Ten victory are Indiana, Purdue, Illinois and Minnesota. To the weekend’s games...

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The Indiana Hoosiers erased all but three points of an 18-point Buckeye lead in the final two minutes of the game, but their second onside kick attempt failed, and Ohio State held off their frantic comeback to stay unbeaten on the season, 52-49.

Ohio State (7-0, 3-0) came out on the winning end of a game with 101 points scored for the second week in a row, as Braxton Miller and Carlos Hyde once again combined to rush for over 300 yards, but the shoddy defense by the Buckeyes took some of the luster off the victory. OSU receiver Devin Smith caught two long TD passes from Miller, and Bradley Roby scored his second touchdown in as many games when he recovered a blocked punt in the end zone.

The OSU defense played their starting fullback, Zach Boren, at linebacker for the first time in his college career, and he led the team in tackles for the game with eight. They gave up 481 total yards, including 331 yards (and 35 points) in the second half. After the game, Roby called the defensive performance “embarrassing”, and his head coach acknowledged the obvious. “Spread offensives are really exposing us right now,” Meyer said. “We have got to get something fixed.”

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- Saturday, October 13, 2012

- Memorial Stadium - Bloomington, IN

- Ohio State at Indiana

- 8:00 p.m. (ET)

- TV: Big Ten Network -


The Buckeyes hit the road for their second straight primetime game, taking on the Indiana Hoosiers in Bloomington Saturday night. 8th-ranked Ohio State puts its perfect 6-0 record on the line against Kevin Wilson’s improving Hoosier squad in what could turn out to be another high-scoring contest.

Urban Meyer will no doubt be guarding against overconfidence by his Buckeyes, following wins over Michigan State and Nebraska, two of the Big Ten heavyweights (if such a thing exists this year). Indiana has been the conference punching bag for years, but the Hoosiers put a scare into those same Spartans last week, using an efficient offensive attack to stake them to an early 17-0 lead, before fading in the second half and falling to 2-3, and 0-2 in league play.

The two victories for Indiana has already doubled their win total for 2011, Wilson’s first season in Bloomington. The 1-11 mark was disappointing to Hoosier fans anxious for a faster start to Wilson’s turnaround project, but the offensive-minded head coach has kept his team in every game this year, and seems to have things headed in the right direction. Wilson is 3-14 in a season and a half, and 0-10 in Big Ten play.

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Good teams know how to win games in a variety of ways. Two weeks ago, Ohio State went up to East Lansing and edged Michigan State in a classic Big Ten defensive slugfest. Last Saturday, in front of a nighttime crowd in Columbus, the Buckeyes blasted Nebraska with volleys of firepower from every angle. Scoring touchdowns in all three phases, Ohio State blew away the Cornhuskers 63-38 to move to a perfect 6-0 on the season. And after back-to-back impressive performances against solid conference opposition, it’s safe to say this is a good team.

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As I watched Ohio State struggle through their lost 2011 season, I thought, for the sake of the future, it was best to fall on the sword right then and there.  It probably would have been a good idea to make that call before the season started, before Jordan Hall and Travis Howard threw gasoline on the fire and before the Buckeyes considerable no-show in Miami Gardens on September 17^th.  Their 24-6 trouncing at the hand of the Canes, paired with a pseudo-shutout against Michigan State at the ‘Shoe and a collapse in Lincoln put Ohio State in a bad position to say, “You know what?  No bowl for us, NCAA.  We've been misbehaving, and we’re going to slap out own wrist.  Do you see us policing ourselves NCAA?”

When bad news drops, it’s never convenient.  People always call it bad timing if doomsday comes in the midst of anything else that causes malcontent, but the worst time for bad news is always “now”.  Take Georgia quarterback, Adam Murray, who lost badly to South Carolina on Saturday, then found out his father has cancer, and came home to find his home vandalized after it all.  Yes, the situation is compounded by it all happening at once, but “dad has cancer” doesn't really lend itself to any good timing.  However, the Buckeyes were presented with a golden opportunity to self-impose a bowl ban in a season that was undoubtedly lost, but didn't necessarily present itself that way on the surface.

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And then there was one.

Ohio State moved to 6-0 on Saturday night, surviving the regular season’s first half as the Big Ten’s only unbeaten team. It was a good weekend for the conference’s traditional powers and a setback for some wannabes. Michigan, Penn State and Ohio State posted impressive wins, while Northwestern and Purdue looked like also-rans. Everything old is new again.

The Buckeyes jumped up to No. 8 in the new AP ranking, but the only other Big Ten representation is Michigan, sneaking into the poll at No. 25.  To the games...

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