The Thundering Herd of Marshall rolled into town with the thought of pulling off a big upset over #2 ranked Ohio State for their brand new head coach Doc Holliday. However, on a day where the Buckeyes were honoring former Safety Jack Tatum, Marshall wasn’t going to find much success.
The game started out incredibly poorly for the Thundering Herd. Fielding the first kick of the game, the Marshall Returner was laid out by Dorian Bell hard. The hit shook the ball loose and a Buckeye defender jumped on top of it at the 22 yard line. With the fantastic starting field position the Buckeyes ran 4 plays, 3 of which were passes, ending in a 5 yard touchdown strike to DeVier Posey that looked almost undefended.
With their first possesion, Marshall managed to put themselves into a 3rd and 1, but found themselves stuffed on 3rd down by the fantastic OSU d-line. The fast paced no-huddle Marshall offense did manage to gain some yardage against the Buckeye defense, but the Bucks were too fast to fall behind on any of the plays and refused to give up more than they had to.
With Pryor showing off his arm on the first drive, the Buckeyes decided to use the second drive to show off their ability to run the ball. Starting on their own side of the field, the Buckeyes ran 3 plays starting with a pass to Posey before Brandon Saine broke a 40 yard run down to the 5 yardline. After that, Tressel dialed up a halfback toss to Saine who walked into the endzone after his blockers completely sealed the edge and left no Marshall defenders to stop #3.
The Buckeyes Kick return teams looked solid for the first two kicks. However, on the third return the Marshall returner found a crease and managed to take it down to the OSU 30 yard line. The Buckeye defense stiffened and refused to yield more than a couple yards. On 4th down, Marshall’s kicker whiffed on the chance to put the Herd on the board wide left.
For the majority of the first quarter the Marshall defense seemed completely unable to stop the Bucks. The only times the Buckeyes had to punt were more due to miscues by the offense than anything the Marshall defense did. Marshall, on the other hand, had to fight themselves as much as they did the OSU defense. Often the Herd receivers dropped passes that had hit them straight in the hands, and the Marshall offensive line was simply unable to run block effectively against the tough Silver Bullet D-Line. One bright spot for the Herd, however, was their pass protection which managed to shut down the OSU pass rush, and was particularly able to seal off Cameron Heyward early.
For the most part during the game Pryor made some fantastic decisions when passing the football. However, there were a couple of times when he reverted to his old ways. The worst was a play where he fumbled the snap, picked it up, and tried a quick long pass to Grant Shwartz. The ball ended up being horribly overthrown but was close to being intercepted by the Marshall corner. Outside of that throw, Pryor did a good job of checking down on his receivers and finding guys who were open and in a position to make a play.
Of particular concern during the game was the field goal protection for the Bucks. After the botched pass from Pryor the Buckeyes attmpted a 53 yard field goal which was blocked by a Marshall defender who got great height and surge up the middle of the line. The ball was quickly picked up by a Herd player who charged 50 yards into the endzone for the first Marshall score of the game. It was not the first time that Marshall had managed to get a hand on a kick during the game as they were able to deflect the first extra point of the game that managed to sneak into the goalposts anyway.
During the second quarter the Buckeyes began to experiment a little bit with their player alignments. As usual the entire second team offensive line saw the field for a drive to get some experience. Chris Fields found himself in the game on a screen pass which gained a few yards. Travis Howard, as expected, saw the field quite a bit though showed his youth in pass coverage missing a pick and tripping up on another route, though the receiver was forced to make a circus catch in order to haul it in.
The Buckeye secondary in general had a rough time in deep coverage during the game. Devon Torrence had a horrendous pass interference play where he grabbed the receiver’s facemask long before the ball ever got there. A few other times OSU coverage men found themselves out of position, though the Marshall receivers often dropped the passes anyway. That said, the defense played a very aggressive game and the Herd often found their screens and other passes to the flat extremely well defended.
Other things appeared during the game that were quite promising for the Bucks. Terrelle Pryor had a great day passing and clearly seemed to choose throwing before running, though he did still use his feet effectively at a couple of critical moments when he had no passing options. He even managed to toss it to the tight end Jake Stoneburner twice in the first half.
No, you did not read that wrong, the Buckeyes managed to use the tight end effectively in the offense.
Another great sign for this team is the play of the offensive line which was fantastic for the majority of the game. The line managed to hold a great pocket for Terrelle to throw from giving him plenty of time to read his receivers. Even better, the run blocking from the line – especially in the infamous Dave play – was spectacular as they opened up a few gigantic holes for Saine to run through, one of which resulted in a huge 40 yard TD run at the end of the first half.
Things continued to get worse for Marshall. After managing to close the gap to 14-7 in the middle of the 1st quarter on the returned blocked field goal, the Buckeyes put the ball into the endzone 3 more times before the half including a long pass play to Dane Sanzenbacher over the middle where he had to run over a defender to get in, the 40 yard run by Saine, and a pick-6 by Brian Rolle where Marshall quarterback Anderson tossed an ill-advised throw over the middle into massive coverage. Rolle seemed surprised briefly to have the ball and then managed to evade the entire Herd offense in order to find the corner of the endzone for the score to put the Bucks up 35-7 with minutes left in the second quarter. The last time Ohio State had scored 35 first half points came against Kent State in 2007 which ended with a final score of 35-0.
For the half the stats were clearly a tale of two teams. Terrelle Pryor was 10-16 for 166 yards and 2 touchdowns with no interceptions along with 4 carries for 13 yards. On the ground, Brandon Saine wracked up 103 yards on 8 carries – an average of 12.9 yards per carry – and 2 scores. The top receivers for the half were Dane Sanzenbacher (2 for 93 yards 1 TD) DeVier Posey (3 for 30 yards, 1 TD) and Jake Stoneburner (2 for 25 yards).
As for Marshall, Brian Anderson threw 9 for 17 for 66 yards and a touchdown to Brian Rolle (interception). Surprisingly, Marshall hadn’t focused on their running game much where leading rusher Martin Ward had 28 yards on 4 carries. A team struggling so much to move the football, with only 5 first downs in the half, should have gone with the running game more early to try to help kick-start the passing game.
Coming out of the gate in the second half Tressel surprised everyone by keeping Terrelle Pryor in the game. The plan was to give Pryor some practice dealing with coming back from halftime and continuing to play at the high level he had in the first half. Pryor did a fantastic job of finding open receivers and moving the ball out of the gate. Pryor got a lot of help from Dan Herron who finally picked up his game after a sluggish first half. A great throw over the middle to Dane Sanzenbacher and a threading of the needle to DeVier Posey for the touchdown. On the touchdown pass, Pryor showed great touch and put the ball precisely where he needed to in order to keep the defender from being able to make a play. It was exactly the kind of play you expect from an experienced quarterback.
Marshall managed to find some offensive success in the second half by moving the ball quickly with underneath passes over the middle and lots of hurry-up offense. The drive left the Buckeye defense winded and started to cause the defense to make mistakes. The most critical was a completely unnecessary hit on Herd QB Brian Anderson by Solomon Thomas that was (rightly) called roughing the passer and gave the Herd the ball at the OSU 10 yard line. Luckily for the OSU defense, they managed to force a fumble on the following screen pass which they fell on and ended the best threat Marshall had mustered all game.
Pryor continued to play late in the game, clearly an attempt by Tressel to give him as much time to shake off the off-season rust before the Miami game. It was clear by this point up 35 points that the Buckeyes were in no rush to score and were content to milk as much time off the clock as possible despite still having their starting quarterback in the game. Pryor ended the game 17-25 for 247 yards and 3 touchdowns in the air, along with 8 carries for 17 yards on the ground.
The Buckeyes managed to get some of the backups into the game in the fourth quarter. Joe Bauserman saw time at quarterback, while Jordan Hall and Jamaal Berry both got time running the football. Several O-line backups saw time as well, including Corey Linsley. The entire second team defense got to see time as well, including Johnathan Hankins the surprisingly large defensive tackle.
The Buckeyes ended the game with fantastic balance overall: 249 yards passing and 271 yards running for 520 total yards on 70 total plays with no turnovers. Marshall only gained 198 yards, 155 through the air, with 3 turnovers on 56 plays. The Buckeyes dominated the time of possession 35:14 to 24:46.
Brandon Saine ended the game with 9 carries and 103 yards for 2 TD’s. His yards per carry were matched by Jaamal Berry who picked up 80 on 7 carries in mop-up duty. The top receivers for the game included Dane Sanzenbacher’s 3 for 113 yards and a TD, Jake Stoneburner’s 3 for 41 yards and DeVier Posey’s 4 for 41 yards and 2 TD’s.
Ohio State next faces off against Miami (Florida) on Saturday, September 11th. Marshall takes on West Virginia on Friday, September 10th.
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