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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