It was a beautiful sunny fall afternoon on the banks of the Olentangy River Saturday at Ohio Stadium. With a 77 degree kickoff temperature the Iowa Hawkeyes and the 3rd ranked Ohio State Buckeyes kicked off week six with a conference win on the line. Everyone knew Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz would rely heavily on his star powered defense which is status quote for their program. For one half it worked, the Hawkeyes were able to turn the Buckeyes over three times in the first half leading to an Iowa type of game.
Ohio State did end up scoring first on a 14 yard touchdown pass from quarterback Will Howard to his senior receiver Emeka Egbuka making the score 7-0 with 3:51 to play in the 1st quarter. The same score would take the Buckeyes to the locker room at the break. Leaving potential points on the field because of turnovers is usually something the Buckeyes do to opposing teams but only scoring seven in the first half because of three turnovers is not something most fans probably would have expected.
Ohio State head coach Ryan Day talked after the game about the slow start in the first half, “It’s a mixture of feelings, almost two hundred yards of offense. On defense we had held them to under 90 yards but two turnovers and we didn’t convert on 4th down. I thought we worked hard trying to score there in the last four minutes of first half. We didn’t do that because we had a turnover. On defense there was energy, but also even on offense if we just take care of the football we can turn this thing and get going. The score is probably different if we take care of the ball coming out of halftime. We really wanted to come out in the third quarter and have a great drive. Then we started getting the short fields and the turnovers that really flipped the script for us.”
That’s exactly what happened for Coach Day and the Buckeyes. After a long drive to start the third quarter, Will Howard threw a laser to freshman star receiver Jeremiah Smith in the corner of the end zone. Smith once again made another jaw dropping catch, with his left hand stiff arming the defender he reached up with his right to make a spectacular one handed catch that would increase the lead to 14-0. That encore performance came after last week’s two impressive one handed catches in East Lansing.
This would light a fire under the whole team leading to the defense forcing three turnovers in the second half, allowing the Buckeyes to eventually pull away. Iowa is not a team built to overcome big deficits. Once Ohio State got the momentum they kept their foot on the accelerator. Jack Sawyer forced a fumble on defense allowing the Buckeyes to go up by several scores. Not only would quarterback Will Howard loosen up through the air in the second half, throwing four touchdowns but he would also have a four yard rushing touchdown. The grad transfer definitely stepped up to lead the offense in the second half. "We said coming into this game we were going to learn a lot about this team and our toughness and our ability to block out the noise and go down and get to work. We knew we had a big one coming up next week, but we knew that this was a big one too," Howard said to the media after the game.
Wide receiver Emeka Egbuka exploded for 71 yards and three touchdowns Saturday which would also help his quarterback get into rhythm. Ohio State held strong to pull away from Iowa winning 35-7, avoiding any concerns for an upset on a day where several top ranked teams including number one Alabama lost.
Up next is the cross country trip to Eugene Oregon where the undefeated Ducks await the Buckeyes in a highly anticipated Big Ten showdown. Saturday’s game at Oregon will be at 7:30pm on NBC.