Displaced Cleveland Fan

This is the type of game you expect at the beginning of the year. New Mexico State was overmatched in every way.

The Buckeyes 559 yards of total offense (310 rushing, 249 passing) compared to a total of 62 yards from the Aggies. Ohio State’s defense held New Mexico State to just 2 first downs.

This game was really nothing more than a warmup for the final three games of the season. If the Buckeyes win their remaining games against Penn State, Iowa, and Michigan, they’ll win the Big Ten.
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Maybe you noticed that I didn’t update following last week’s embarrassing loss to Purdue. That wasn’t just because they lost. It was a hectic weekend here, so I didn’t really feel motivated to post a reaction to the game.

What last week’s game did was end any shot the Buckeyes had to play for a national title. I know, it was a long shot. And with the way the offense has played the past few weeks, they didn’t deserve it. But they were at #7 going into last week’s match-up against the Boilermakers. This week, when the first BCS standings came out, Ohio State was at #19. No way they reach one of the top two spots.

But this team can still reach a BCS bowl. They still have games against Iowa (#6) and Penn State (#13). If they win these games, as well as their remaining games against New Mexico State and Michigan, they’ve got a shot. So all is not lost, especially if the offense plays as well as it did today.

So on to today’s game against Minnesota.
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Looking at the final score, it looks like the Buckeyes were on top of everything this game. The offense put up 31 points. The defense held the Badgers to 13. Good solid game right?

Not exactly. The defense and special teams won this game for the Buckeyes. They had two interceptions that were returned for touchdowns and one kickoff return touchdown. Take those away, and the Buckeyes lose 13-10 on Terrelle Pryor’s unimpressive 5/13, 87 yard, 1 TD, 1 INT performance.
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The Buckeyes continued to roll through the Big Ten with a 33-14 win over the Hoosiers in Indiana.

Coming into this game, the Ohio State defense had held opponents scoreless the past two weeks. Indiana finally broke that streak with a touchdown in the second quarter. They added another meaningless TD in the final seconds. All in all, another good showing by the Buckeyes’ defense.
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Somebody please, make it stop!

Just in case you were tempted to think that the Browns season couldn’t get any worse in week 3, here it is. See that picture? That’s Derek Anderson. Remember him? Sure you do. And look what he’s wearing. A helmet. You know why? He played today. No joke. What happened to Brady Quinn? Mangini benched him in favor of Anderson. Yeah, you read that right.
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I was out for a few hours this afternoon and this evening. I left right after this game started. When I got home and saw the score, I thought to myself, “it’s probably good that I wasn’t home following this game.”

Last week the Browns lost to the Vikings by 14 points. The Vikings are a good team on both sides of the ball. On the other side, you have the Broncos beating the Cincinnati Bengals last week on a fluke play in the final seconds. This game should have been close. It wasn’t.
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After last week’s tough loss to USC, the Buckeyes traveled north this week to take on the Toledo Rockets at Cleveland Browns Stadium. If there was any wonder whether this team would be able to move on after last week, that was settled early on in this game. After scoring two first quarter touchdowns and building a 24-point halftime lead, the Buckeyes never looked back.

This was not necessarily going to be an easy win for Ohio State. Sure, they were playing an over-matched in-state school. But this team beat Michigan last year. And Toledo quarterback Aaron Opelt came into this game leading the nation in total offense (437 yards/game). But the Buckeyes defense completely shut down the Rockets offense. The closest Toledo came to scoring was in the fourth quarter when wide receiver Eric Page had the ball stripped at the goal line. Ohio State recovered the ball in the endzone for a touchback. The Buckeyes then marched down the field for a touchdown to go up 38-0.
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