- Saturday, October 6, 2012

- Ohio Stadium - Columbus, OH

- Nebraska at Ohio State

- 8:00 p.m. (ET)

- TV: ABC -


Undefeated Ohio State faces what may be its toughest test of the year as the 2012 season reaches the halfway point Saturday night at the Horseshoe. Former OSU captain Bo Pelini brings his 21st-ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers to Columbus where he’ll try to collect his second win in as many tries against the No. 12 Buckeyes.

Pelini and the Huskers set a record for the school’s greatest comeback a year ago in Lincoln when they overcame a 21-point Ohio State lead in the second half to top the Buckeyes 34-27, and you can bet the bitter memory of that loss lingers with this year’s OSU team. Following their bruising win over a tough Michigan State squad a week ago, Urban Meyer said he felt his team came together in a way that proved to him what they’re made of, and they’ll need more of that togetherness Saturday night in order to remain unbeaten.

This matchup is compelling well beyond the storied histories of the two programs and the prime-time national telecast with Brent and Herbie. The collision of two ranked teams in the beleaguered Big Ten may be a rare occurrence this season, and as the conference wheat begins to separate from the chaff, Nebraska (4-1, 1-0) and Ohio State (5-0, 1-0) look like two of the kernels worth watching closely the rest of the way.

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Five games opened up the Big Ten slate last weekend, while Purdue finished up its non-conference schedule with a win over Marshall. Your humble correspondent missed all of the action, untethered as he was from football, the Internet and the North American land mass on a brief weekend cruise in the Caribbean, but the Recap must go on, and the DVR makes it all possible, if slightly delayed.

There were two feature match-ups on the day’s schedule. First, the Ohio State-Michigan State game in East Lansing, a revenge game of sorts for the Buckeyes, and the first ever Big Ten contest as head coach for Urban Meyer. The other was the Nebraska-Wisconsin meeting in Lincoln, with the Huskers trying to avenge last year’s 48-17 wipeout at the hands of the Badgers in Madison.

As you probably know by now, the two revenge-minded teams both came out on top, and will meet in a nationally-televised game this Saturday night in Columbus.

We’ll begin with those two headliners as we revisit Saturday’s games...

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Ohio State didn’t play a particularly clean game up in East Lansing on Saturday afternoon. There were turnovers, blown opportunities and, on at least one occasion, a mass outbreak of the tackling woes that have plagued the team all season. But the Buckeyes won the game 17-16 over the Spartans, and in doing so showed plenty of toughness and fortitude in gutting out a road victory over a solid Big Ten opponent. In terms of execution they graded out at a C; in terms of effort they graded out at an A, and as a result they’re now 5-0.

Defensive Statement: Not that Michigan State is all that good offensively, but Ohio State’s defensive performance on Saturday is still laudable. The Buckeyes swarmed Le’Veon Bell, holding him to 45 yards on 17 carries while basically erasing the ground game from the Spartan playbook. The normally run-oriented MSU offense passed 42 times and ran 22 times, far from its usual ratio. For the day the Spartans finished with 303 total yards, went 4-of-15 on third down and reached the end zone only once. With Ohio State’s offense struggling to finish drives, it was up to the defense to hold the line-and it did just that.

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Last year against Michigan State, Braxton Miller had a miserable outing, managing just 29 yards of total offense in 10-7 loss to the Spartans in Columbus.

This time around, Miller showed just how much he has matured, piling up 315 yards of offense in a 17-16 victory over No. 20 Michigan State in East Lansing.

Ohio State offensive coordinator Tom Herman talked about the improvements of his sophomore quarterback after the game, "He was a deer in the headlights then. He really didn't know what he was doing."

He certainly knows what he’s doing now.

Miller completed 16 of his 23 passes (69.6%) for 179 yards with one touchdown and one interception while adding 136 yards rushing on 23 carries. Despite Michigan State punishing Miller all afternoon -- even forcing the sophomore quarterback to the sideline on two occasions -- he always came back and made the big play for his team.

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- Saturday, September 29, 2012

- Spartan Stadium - East Lansing, MI

- Ohio State at Michigan State

- 3:30 p.m. (ET)

- TV: ABC -

The No. 14 Ohio State Buckeyes hit the road for the first time this year for a battle against the No. 20 Michigan State Spartans. ESPN’s college gameday will also invade East Lansing as this Big Ten opener features the conference’s highest ranked teams.

The Buckeyes have dominated Sparty recently winning seven of the last eight matchups, but Michigan State got the best of Ohio State last year in an ugly 10-7 loss in Columbus.

Ohio State comes into the game a perfect 4-0 after defeating a surprisingly plucky UAB team 29-15 last week. Michigan State’s lone blemish came two weeks ago with a 21-3 loss to Notre Dame, and the Spartans hold a 3-1 record entering conference play.

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Is there such thing as an unimpressive 4-0 record? If you don’t think so, apparently you haven’t watched Ohio State for the first part of the season. The Buckeyes moved to an imperfectly perfect 4-0 with a 29-15 victory over Alabama-Birmingham at the Horseshoe on Saturday afternoon, capping off a month’s worth of sloppy, stumbling  performances that all happened to end in victories.

Thank God for the Scoreboard: If you just looked at the box score of Saturday’s game, you might think UAB pulled the upset. The Blazers outgained Ohio State 403-347, picked up 22 first downs to Ohio State’s 20 and controlled the ball for nearly 34 minutes. For the majority of the afternoon they were the better, more efficient team. The only thing UAB didn’t do- aside from win, of course- was turn its copious yardage into touchdowns. Despite moving up and down the field almost the entire game the Blazer offense couldn’t get the ball into the end zone, settling for three field goals off the powerful leg of kicker Ty Long.

Special-Teams Breakdown: UAB did score a touchdown, however- just not on offense. With 9:21 left in a scoreless first quarter, Blazer safety Calvin Jones came through clean and took a punt practically off the foot of Ben Buchanan. Nick Adams scooped up the loose ball and cruised into the end zone to give UAB a 6-0 lead. The Buckeyes blocked the extra point; however, their return unit would later be caught napping on the second-half kickoff as the Blazers recovered their own onside kick (they wound up punting on the possession.)

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Conference play begins this weekend in the Big Ten, and that may be the only thing that can put an end to the entirely legitimate critique of the league’s non-conference performance. Big Ten teams were 7-3 this past weekend (Indiana and Purdue were idle) and in the only contest against a ranked team, Michigan was outclassed by No. 11 Notre Dame in South Bend.

In other action, B1G teams were able to get by Idaho State, South Dakota, Eastern Michigan and Louisiana Tech...oh wait...scratch that last one.

This week there are five conference matchups on the schedule (Purdue hosts Marshall, and Michigan is idle), and beginning October 6, all teams will be in conference play. If nothing else, that will allow for a shorter Recap for the rest of the season. To the games...

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Ohio State remained unbeaten Saturday with a 29-15 victory over the Blazers from UAB, but OSU fans looking for signs of progress had little else to celebrate. Braxton Miller continued to carry the offensive load for the Buckeyes with two rushing touchdowns, but it was an otherwise lackluster performance for the Scarlet and Gray on both sides of the ball, and on special teams.

The Blazers (0-3) came into Columbus a 36-point underdog, and proceeded to out-play and out-coach the 16th-ranked and heavily favored Buckeyes for most of the afternoon. They gained more total yards than Ohio State (403-347), got more first downs (22-20), and dominated time of possession (33:55 - 26:05)

The Blazers blocked an OSU punt for a touchdown, pulled off a successful onside kick to start the second half, and shocked the assembled 105,019 by taking a 9-0 lead over the home team early in the second quarter. Urban Meyer, perhaps understating the case in his postgame comments, remarked, “It's glaringly obvious we've got to get a lot better or we won't win next week.”

Next week is the start of the Big Ten schedule with a crucial game in East Lansing against Michigan State, and at this point, only the decrepit overall state of the conference is cause for reassurance for these Buckeyes. They won unimpressively last week against Cal, and the pollsters dropped them from No. 12 to No. 16 for their trouble. There’s no telling how they might be punished for the way they looked in victory this week.

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- Saturday, September 22, 2012

- Ohio Stadium - Columbus, OH

- UAB at Ohio State

- 12:00 p.m. (ET)

- TV: Big Ten Network -


The UAB Blazers will meet the Ohio State Buckeyes for the first time ever Saturday at the Horseshoe in what amounts to a tuneup for the first game of the Big Ten schedule next week in East Lansing. Ohio State has not lost a home game to an unranked non-conference opponent for 30 years, a streak that has now reached 60 games, and that’s not likely to change this week against the 0-2 Blazers.

The 16th-ranked Buckeyes (3-0) are a 36-point favorite to dispatch a winless UAB squad playing under first-year head coach Garrick McGee, who served as offensive coordinator at Arkansas for the last two seasons, and was on the staff in Fayetteville for four years. The Blazers are coming off a 49-6 loss to South Carolina a week ago after losing earlier to Troy State 39-29 (which by my count makes them the fourth best FBS team in the state of Alabama).  UAB returns 11 starters from a group that went 3-9 in 2011. The Blazers have not had a winning season since 2004, when they were 7-5.

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“Telling Quotes” is a weekly recap of the Big Ten’s top stories using quotes from around the conference (with a moderate Ohio State lean).

Remember John L. Smith?

The former Michigan State head coach consistently provided Big Ten fans with something to laugh at, and it’s nice to know he’s still spreading that same joy throughout SEC country. We’ll get to that in a bit.

His former conference fared much better on the field this week than last, at least from a win/loss perspective, and the Buckeyes improved to 3-0 after a closer-than-expected battle with Cal.

Check out this week’s top quotes after the jump.

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