Written by Jesse Lamovsky

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There is really no such thing as a “lucky” win. There is such thing as a “fortunate” win, however, and Ohio State was fortunate to come away with a sloppy, exasperating yet thrilling 35-28 victory over the Cal Golden Bears Saturday afternoon in the Horseshoe. The Buckeyes were dominated on both sides of the ball for much of the second half as they let a 13-point lead slip away, and in the end it took one big play from Braxton Miller and Devin Smith to finally send the underdog Bears to the canvas.

Really, this was several games in one- an opening salvo that put the Buckeyes in command, a long second-half stretch completely controlled by Cal, and a crunch-time shootout that went to Ohio State, which in the end had one more round in the chamber than the visitors. Both teams made major mistakes throughout that could have been and in some cases were decisive in the outcome.

It certainly wasn’t the most pristine game ever played. But it was highly entertaining and, more importantly, it was a Buckeye victory.

Sweet Baby Braxton: When a guy accounts for 324 total yards and five touchdowns you don’t sweat the small stuff. Braxton Miller did not have a pristine performance on Saturday- he looked indecisive at times in the pocket, failed to generate any offense for much of the second half and threw an interception midway through the fourth period that perhaps should have been fatal to his team’s chances.

In retrospect, though… so what? In addition to those bad plays, Miller completed 16-of-30 for 249 yards and a career-high four touchdowns while adding 75 rushing yards on 12 carries with a score. Miller opened the scoring late in the first quarter with a 55-yard touchdown run in which he froze a Cal defender at the line of scrimmage and sped untouched the rest of the way. Then, after going cold for a long stretch, he stepped up again at the crisis point, driving the Buckeyes for two fourth-quarter touchdowns after the Bears had taken their only lead of the game at 21-20.

Miller’s performance mirrored that of his team. In the first sixteen-and-a-half minutes, as Ohio State jumped out to a 20-7 bulge, the sophomore completed 8-of-11 for 124 yards and two touchdowns and added 61 yards on five carries with a touchdown. In the following two quarters, as the Bucks lost their lead, Miller completed 3-of-10 attempts for ten yards, ran for minus-three yards and failed to generate a score. Finally, down the stretch, Miller hit on 5-of-8 for 115 yards and two touchdowns and scrambled for a two-point conversion as the Buckeyes pulled the game out of the fire.

With a young quarterback you take the good with the bad. And Braxton Miller’s good plays were a major reason why Ohio State is 3-0 instead of 2-1.

Speaking of Good: Although he had some key drops, particularly in the first half, Miller’s favorite target Devin Smith came through with by far his best game as a collegiate with five catches for 145 yards and two touchdowns. His second score proved the game-winner. With 3:26 left, the score tied at 28-28 and Ohio State facing third and seven at its own 28, the former Massillon Tiger got behind a mixed-up Cal defense, pulled in Miller’s long toss and raced the rest of the way for the 72-yard touchdown that put the Buckeyes ahead to stay.

Jordan-on-the-Spot: Senior tailback Jordan Hall was in the lineup for the first time in 2012, and his presence helped take the burden off Braxton Miller as the primary ball-carrier. Teaming with Miller on several successful option plays, Hall made his debut a productive one with 87 yards on 17 carries.

Breakout for the ‘Burner: It’s been a disappointing senior season thus far for tight end Jake Stoneburner, who had his scholarship temporarily revoked over the summer and came into Saturday’s game with just four receptions. He made his presence felt against Cal, however, with three catches for 44 yards and two touchdowns, including one of Ohio State’s go-ahead scores in the fourth period on a Tebow-esque fake run-and-pass from Braxton Miller. Tight ends have thrived in Urban Meyer’s system before- think Aaron Hernandez- and Stonebreaker still has an opportunity to make a big impact this season. Hopefully Saturday’s solid outing was a start.

Start with the Positive: All statistical evidence to the contrary- we’ll get to that- Ohio State’s defense did do some good things on Saturday. They finally dialed up some pressure, sacking Cal quarterback Zach Maynard six times. Several individual Buckeye defenders- John Simon, Jonathan Hankins, Ryan Shazier and Bradley Roby most notably- had moments of brilliance. The Buckeyes twice stopped fourth-down plays in their own territory and came up with the game-clinching play on Christian Bryant’s interception with 1:09 to play.

Move on to the Negative: Ohio State’s overall defensive performance, however, was not up to snuff. California racked up 512 yards of total offense, including a robust 356 in the second half alone. Bad angles of pursuit and worse tackling led to several big plays by the Bears, including touchdown runs of 81 and 59 yards by speedster Brendan Bigelow (who finished with 160 yards on just four carries.) Time and again Buckeye defenders simply launched themselves at ball-carriers rather than wrapping up, and the results were not pretty. Ohio State didn’t tackle well in 2011, and it’s been the same story thus far in 2012.

Hanky Hell: Penalties were also a major issue. After compiling 99 yards in penalties the first two weeks, the Buckeyes were hit with 101 yards worth on eleven infractions Saturday.  

With a Little Help from their Foes: Actually, Cal proved a lot more adept at stopping Cal than Ohio State did. The Bears left a sizable number of points on the field. A holding penalty wiped out what would have been a 47-yard touchdown pass from Maynard to C.J. Anderson in the second quarter. The biggest blow to Cal’s victory chances came courtesy of the kicking game. Vincenzo D’Amato went 0-for-3 on the day, hooking each attempt far to the left- including a 42-yard try that would have given his team a 24-21 lead with 4:20 left. If the Bears flew back to Berkeley believing they should have won, they can hardly be blamed.

Around the Nation

Game of the Week- Western Kentucky/Kentucky: It wasn’t a great weekend overall in terms of competitive football- we’ll get to that in a moment- but it certainly was for the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers and their fans. WKU- which went 0-12 in 2009, its first year as a member of the FBS- travelled up to Lexington on Saturday and stunned its up-state cousin Kentucky 32-31 in overtime. It was the program’s first win over the Wildcats in four tries.

The Hilltoppers clinched their upset with flair. Down 31-30 in overtime after scoring a touchdown, WKU head coach Willie Taggart eschewed the extra point and went for the two-point conversion and the win, exactly the right move with an underdog team on the road. Quarterback Kawaun flipped a screen pass to tailback Antonio Andrews and, as Kentucky defenders charged in on him, flipped it back to a wide-open Jakes who practically walked into the end zone.

This game was a tale of two coaches. Down in Bowling Green Willie Taggart is the toast of the town, having built a formerly miserable WKU program into a Sun Belt contender. In Lexington Joker Phillips is feeling the heat of fan discontent. With two losing seasons in a row, no bowl appearance last season and shriveling attendance at Commonwealth Stadium, the last thing Phillips could afford was a loss to Western Kentucky.

Blowout City: The battle on the Bluegrass was the best of a pretty gamy bunch. Hopeless mismatches and lopsided scores abounded last weekend. Top-ten teams Alabama, LSU, Oregon, Florida State, Georgia, South Carolina and West Virginia won by scores of 52-0, 63-14, 63-14, 52-0, 56-20, 49-6 and 42-12, respectively. The blowout trend continued throughout the rest of the Top 25 as well; Clemson beat Furman 41-7, Texas beat Ole Miss 66-31, Michigan beat Massachusetts 63-13, UCLA beat Houston 37-6 and Arizona beat South Carolina State 56-0.

Go outside the Top 25 and there were still more bloodbaths: Vanderbilt beating Presbyterian 58-0, Oklahoma State beating Louisiana-Lafayette 65-24, Illinois beating Charleston Southern 44-0, Purdue beating Eastern Michigan 54-16, Georgia Tech beating Virginia 56-20, Washington beating Portland State 52-13, Duke beating North Carolina Central 54-17, Tulsa beating Nicholls State 66-16 and Fresno State beating Colorado 69-14. Even Akron got off, wasting Morgan State 66-6.

Still, there is hope for better things on the immediate horizon. With BYU/Boise, Clemson/Florida State, Kansas State/Oklahoma and Michigan/Notre Dame (always a dandy) on the docket for the upcoming week, there’s a pretty good chance that we’ll see a whole bunch of dramatic action instead of just a few moments of excitement among hours of dreary, one-sided football.

Notre Dame to the ACC: It wouldn’t be major-college sports without someone shifting conferences, and this time the mover is that fabled football independent, Notre Dame. The Irish are still independent in football but the rest of their varsity sports will compete in the Atlantic Coast Conference beginning in 2015. The football program will receive ACC bowl tie-ins and will play at least five ACC schools per season.

Really, this move was a long time coming. Notre Dame has no immediate plans to join a conference in football but if it ever does that conference certainly won’t be the Big East- not now, after just about every face card in that league’s deck has already taken flight. While the ACC is of questionable strength nationally- no league member has competed for the BCS title since the 1999 season, when Florida State won it- it’s on far better footing than the Big East. Of course Notre Dame has also been of questionable strength nationally, so it should fit right in.

In a sense it’s too bad. Back during the Big East’s salad days of the 1990’s- when Miami, Virginia Tech, Boston College, Pitt, West Virginia and Syracuse were stable and reliable members- the league was a perfect fit for Notre Dame. Culturally the South Bend school has always been as Eastern as it is Midwestern geographically. In terms of football history, the Irish share a long and colorful one with several of the Big East’s former stalwarts. But that’s college football, where schools seem to go everywhere except where they really belong.

Speaking of Notre Dame: Amid the talk of Notre Dame’s future it’s apparent that in the wake of Saturday’s 20-3 thumping of Michigan State in East Lansing the present of the Irish looks as promising as it has in a long while. In moving to 3-0 for the first time in a decade, Notre Dame shut down Le’Veon Bell (77 yards on 19 carries), swarmed Andrew Maxwell and never permitted the Spartans to go beyond the Irish 23-yard line. Offensively Notre Dame wasn’t as impressive, but freshman quarterback Everett Golson managed the game, avoided mistakes and showed a lot of talent and poise in a pretty tough environment.

Now, Michigan State has some issues. The offensive line is shorthanded and the inexperienced Maxwell has shown a tendency to get flustered under pressure. Scoring points may be a problem for the Spartans all season. Still, there is such thing as an eye test, and Notre Dame passes it. The Irish just look faster, more athletic and more physical than they have in recent years- particularly on defense. When was the last time they had a player like Manti Te’o on that side of the ball?

We have seen Notre Dame do it with mirrors in the recent past. Tyrone Willingham’s first team in 2002 went 10-3 but was exposed in one-sided losses at USC and to N.C. State in the Gator Bowl. Charlie Weis’s first two teams went a combined 19-6 but were overpowered by elite opponents in BCS bowl games. Brian Kelly isn’t doing it with mirrors now. The Irish aren’t all the way back yet, but they have the potential to be good, legitimately good, very soon. Matter of fact, they might be legitimately good right now.  

It’s a Sixty-Minute Game: If you’re looking for evidence to show why it can be unwise to leave a football game early, here is Exhibit A- last Saturday’s donnybrook between Louisville and North Carolina at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium. With more than five minutes gone in the third period the favored Cardinals were in complete control, up 36-7 and driving deep in UNC territory. At that point it looked safe to beat the traffic.

It wasn’t. After stopping the Cardinals on fourth-and-one at the Carolina 20, the Tarheels drove 79 yards to the score that made it 36-14. Louisville responded with a field goal to make it a 25-point game with 13:38 to play. North Carolina came back quickly, driving 65 yards in less than two minutes to a touchdown. The Heels then blocked a punt at the Louisville five, and on the next play Bryn Renner threw his third touchdown pass of the half to make it 39-28.

It seemed as if the Cards were close to being home free when a punt pinned UNC back at its own seven with 6:06 left. But the Heels again drove the field, and when Romar Morris- who finished the day with 202 total yards, two scores and the punt block- turned a short dump-off into a 50-yard touchdown it was 39-34. Louisville’s Adrian Bushell then fumbled away the ensuing kickoff and all of a sudden North Carolina, down more than four touchdowns early in the half, was twenty yards away from the go-ahead score.

They might have gotten there if not for a very key mistake. On third-and-goal from the three Carolina was whistled for a false start. Two plays later, Renner’s last-ditch pass was knocked down in the end zone and the Cardinals had escaped. North Carolina had scored four touchdowns in a little more than a quarter of play following that fourth-down stop. All it takes is one play to turn a game completely around and that’s why it can be unwise to leave early.

Winners of the Week

Pittsburgh: After bad losses to Youngstown State and Cincinnati to open the season, new head coach Paul Chryst and the Panthers got their first win of 2012 in stunning fashion, decisively upsetting 13^th-ranked Virginia Tech, 35-17. Pitt’s formerly meek-and-mild offense ripped Bud Foster’s normally stout defense for 537 total yards as the Panthers jumped out to a 21-0 lead and cruised from there. For the Hokies it was yet another of the baffling early-season losses that have become their trademark.

Penn State: Pitt’s cross-state rival also got its new coach his first win Saturday, as Bill O’Brien’s Lions thumped Navy, 34-7, behind Matt McGloin’s four touchdown passes. Penn State was outgained 391-341 but forced four Navy turnovers in the win.

Rutgers: The Scarlet Knights moved to 3-0 and continued their domination of the series with South Florida by downing the Bulls 23-13 in Tampa Thursday night- their sixth win in seven tries against USF. Little (5’8”) Jawan Jamison toted the rock 41 times for 151 yards and scored the clinching touchdown on a pretty 41-yard scamper (circle button alert) while the rock-solid Rutgers defense intercepted B.J. Daniels three times. With the way the schedule shapes up, it wouldn’t be shocking to see the Knights carry an 8-1 record into Cincinnati on November 17.

Connecticut: Even Randy Edsall regrets the abrupt, impersonal way in which he left the program he built for Maryland. He didn’t handle his departure well. So it must have been satisfying for the Huskies- many of whom were recruited by Edsall- to knock off their old coach and his Terps 24-21 in College Park Saturday afternoon.

Washington State: Wazzou’s 35-27 road win over a lousy UNLV team Friday night wasn’t particularly impressive in and of itself, but it did move the Cougars to 2-1 on the season- the first time they’ve been over .500 this late in the campaign since 2007, five years and three coaches ago.

Losers of the Week

USC: It’s still early, but the Trojans are on thin ice as far as their BCS title hopes are concerned after a 21-14 loss at Stanford on Saturday night. After taking a 14-7 lead at intermission USC was shut out in the second half, as the Cardinal defense stifled the Trojan ground game and sent the dogs after Matt Barkley, who completed just 20-of-41 and was intercepted twice. USC has now lost five of its last six meetings with Stanford.

Arkansas: Playing without Tyler Wilson, the Razorbacks followed the meltdown against Louisiana-Monroe with a 52-0 blistering at the hands of top-ranked Alabama, the first time the Hogs have been shut out in Fayetteville since 1966. Arkansas mustered only 137 total yards and committed five turnovers in becoming the Tide’s second consecutive shutout victim. After the game Wilson accused his teammates of giving up. I’m no soothsayer, but I don’t see the John L. Smith era lasting too long at this point.

Tennessee: The Volunteers had an opportunity to land the first signature win of the Derek Dooley era but couldn’t capitalize. Trailing 20-13 late in the third quarter, Florida exploded for three touchdowns in eight-and-a-half minutes, including plays of 80 and 75 yards, and pulled away to a 37-20 victory in Knoxville. Tennessee’s defense gave up 555 yards to the Gators, including 336 on the ground.  

Colorado: A bad season got immeasurably worse for the Buffaloes, who were annihilated 69-14 at Fresno State on Saturday. Coming off a loss at Oregon the Bulldogs got healthy in every way against CU, racking up 665 total yards, getting touchdown plays of 97, 94 and 60 yards, returning two interceptions for scores and rolling out to a 55-7 halftime lead. Forget the glory days of Bill McCartney; with Jon Embree off to a 3-13 start the fans in Boulder might be looking back with nostalgia on the Dan Hawkins era.

Brigham Young: The Cougars had not one but two chances to send their rivalry game with Utah into overtime but blew them both. First, following a premature surge onto the field by the fans in Rice-Eccles Stadium, Justin Sorenson had his 51-yard field-goal attempt blocked. Utah was then hit with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after the fans again rushed the field too early. Given an opportunity from a makeable 36 yards, Riley Stephenson sent his attempt off the left upright to finally seal the loss. The kicking gaffes wasted an admirable comeback for BYU, which had trailed 24-7 in the fourth period before getting back into it with two touchdowns.

Next: The University of Alabama-Birmingham Blazers come to Columbus next Saturday at noon. UAB is coming off a 49-6 loss at South Carolina and at 0-2 is well on the way to its eighth consecutive losing season. The Buckeyes won't be playing an opponent as much as they’ll be playing against themselves, looking to cut down on the errors and sloppy play that have marked this first month of the season. UAB represents one more chance to work out the kinks before Big Ten play begins.