Written by Dan Wismar

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Ohio State cruised past Indiana 42-14 in a snowstorm at the Horseshoe on Saturday, and clinched a berth in the Big Ten championship game as a result. School records were falling like the snowflakes, as the Buckeyes won their 23rd straight game, and obliterated the team marks for points and touchdowns in a season. The Buckeyes (11-0, 7-0) won a share of the Big Ten’s Leaders Division title with the win, a crown they can win outright next week in Ann Arbor, or with a Wisconsin loss to Penn State.

Braxton Miller and Carlos Hyde once again led the way for OSU’s relentless ground attack, running for two touchdowns apiece as the Buckeyes raced to a 28-0 halftime lead. Hyde ran for 117 yards on 18 carries, going over 1,000 for the season to become the first running back on an Urban Meyer team to hit that mark.

Miller had 90 yards and a touchdown after his first three carries, and finished with 144 yards on the ground. He didn’t have to throw the ball much in the blizzardy conditions, but managed 11 of 17 for 160 yards through the air, including second half touchdown passes of 24 yards to Dontre Wilson and 39 yards to Devin Smith.

Meyer said he didn’t think he had ever seen his quarterback play better; “There was only a couple of design cue runs...but it would be hard for me to say that wasn't the best he's ever run that I've seen him play.  Played very hard.  Tough.  Physical.”

The Hoosiers (4-7, 2-5) piled up 442 yards of offense, and drove deep into OSU territory several times, but they missed two field goal tries and turned the ball over on downs three times as well. The result was a shutout for the Ohio State defense for three and a half quarters, as the Buckeyes built a 42-0 lead before the Hoosiers scored two late touchdowns against OSU reserves.

Keying the defense for Ohio State was linebacker Ryan Shazier (#2 at right), who turned in a spectacular performance with 20 tackles, including 5 TFL and a sack. Meyer talked about Shazier after the game; “He's playing at a very high level.  A very emotional guy, has the heart...his heart is everything.”  Cornerback Bradley Roby registered a career high in tackles as well with 10, and he also blocked a punt that led to a touchdown in his last game at Ohio Stadium.

The Hoosiers actually posted more first downs than Ohio State (24-22) and ran 92 offensive plays to just 56 for the Buckeyes, but they had to throw the ball 53 times because their running game was ineffective for most of the day against a tough OSU front seven. Indiana quarterbacks Nate Sudfeld and Tre Roberson completed 32 of 53 through the air, but for just 6 yards per attempt. The Hoosiers could manage just 3.1 yards per rush while OSU was rolling at 8.0 yards per carry.

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Other postgame notes:

- OSU set a team record for points in a season with 536, eclipsing the 504 scored in 1998. (Ahem...they have three games to go)

- Every touchdown from here on out will set a new Ohio State season record. They broke the record a week ago, and added six more TD’s against Indiana to extend the new mark to 73 touchdowns.

- Saturday was the 10th consecutive game in which the Buckeyes offense scored on its first drive.

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More from Meyer postgame:

- On the upcoming rivalry week: “I've not really watched much of them on videotape.  I have great respect for this rivalry, humbled to be a part of it. When I say great respect, almost makes me in awe. I'll say this, the responsibility sometimes can be overwhelming, what we have to do next week. So we take it very serious.  We're working the game as we speak.  We're all going to go home, see our families, we're coming back tomorrow and ready to go.”

 

- On what the emotion of senior day was like for him: “One thing that I learned, this is interesting, 1986 when I was here was my first experience with a place like Ohio State where I'm in the middle of it as a graduate assistant. I would see Jim Lachey and Archie Griffin and all these great players come back and be part of this program.  And I would notice that the ones that were part of something special were always back.  They kept coming back.  They kept wanting to be around. 

And as you grow a little older and become more experienced, the greatest thing that happened today is every one of those players in that locker room is going to come back now and be part of this, because there's going to be a special place for them around that facility and what they've done, longest winning streak in Ohio State history.

That's all ‑‑ not all I remember ‑‑ but that's a big part of what kind of drives me is to see the players come back and say look what we did.  Because I saw it."

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Box Score and Complete Statistics

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photo credits: Trevor Ruszkowksi - USA Today Sports (Miller); Marc Lebryk - USA Today Sports (Shazier)