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Ohio State football dominates Michigan State

The Ohio State football team came into today’s game agains Michigan State very confident. This was despite the fact that it was supposed to be a close game. It turns out that the Buckeyes shouldn’t have been that concerned.

Ryan Day had his team prepared for this one. Ohio State had a 49-0 lead at half. Ohio State ended up winning the game 56-7. C. J. Stroud had 6 touchdowns in the first half, tying the school record for touchdown passes in a game. He had that in the first half against a top 10 opponent. That’s simply ridiculous.

Stroud very well could have had his Heisman moment today. He only threw three incompletions and had 432 yards. He was sensational the entire time he was out there and could have put up more numbers had Day not pulled gum after one series on the second half.

Chris Olave had himself a game too. He caught two first half touchdowns and broke the record for career touchdown receptions that was formally held by David Boston. The Buckeyes showed that any given receiver can beat any defense on any given day. They just have too many weapons.

Ohio State football dominates Michigan State

The Ohio State football team’s defense was also really good in this game. They didn’t allow a score until late in the game when all of the starters were pulled. They played a really strong game, especially against Kenneth Walker. He had no room to run the entire game. He only had six carries for a paltry 25 yards.

This was one of the more dominant Ohio State games I’ve seen in awhile. They never were threatened by the Spartans. I did not expect this at all. It’s a really good sign for this team going into TTUN week. They look like a team on a mission.

Ohio State Making Oregon Loss Feel Like Distant Memory as Buckeyes Crush Michigan State
Ryan Day's team is rolling, with college football's best offense at the forefront. Next up? The biggest game of the 2021 season.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — At this very site more than two months ago, in the place they call the Horseshoe, when the weather was much warmer and the college football landscape much more unpredictable, the Oregon Ducks waltzed in here to produce what still is considered to be the best victory of the 2021 season: Oregon 35, Ohio State 28.

On that very same field on Saturday, amid the chill of a Midwestern November day, the Horseshoe served us up another best this season: a butt-kicking.

The best butt-kicking.

Maybe the best, most stunning butt-kicking involving such highly-ranked teams in college football history: No. 4 Ohio State 56, No. 7 Michigan State 7.

It is the biggest margin of victory in a game featuring two top-seven teams since 1945, when top-ranked Army downed No. 6 Penn 61–0. The Cadets that year held the advantage of having World War II warriors all over the field.

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Let’s get to the Buckeye superlatives from Saturday, shall we?

• They scored a touchdown on their first seven offensive drives.

• They scored more points on Michigan State than any other team—and they did it when they hit 42 by the middle of the second quarter.

• Their quarterback, C.J. Stroud, broke a school record with 17 consecutive completions in the first half.

• They had 500 total yards in the first two quarters.

• And, in a striking statistical snapshot of this affair, Stroud threw as many touchdowns in the first half as Michigan State had first downs (six).

It unfolded in such a way that you might have assumed players from another Mitten State team, Eastern Michigan, slipped into Sparty jerseys overnight.

Surely this wasn’t a team that won its first eight games of the season, a program on the brink of giving its second-year coach Mel Tucker a 10-year, $95 million deal (as of kickoff, reports were that he hadn’t signed said deal—a ghastly mistake in hindsight; Mel, find a pen as soon as you can).

But let’s be honest, the outcome—an Ohio State blowout—wasn’t so much of a surprise. The Buckeyes were favored by nearly 20 points, possessing one of the country’s hottest passing offenses against a defense that was the worst at stopping the pass.

At one point on Saturday, Ohio State had scored 42 points, in 23 minutes of play, on 38 plays. Stroud launched himself to the top of the Heisman race, starting the game by completing 20 of his first 21 attempts. He threw touchdown passes of 77, 43, 23, 12, five and four yards. If his receivers weren’t open, they made spectacular plays (hello, Chris Olave!).

“A lot of the things I could kind of see before it happened,” Stroud said.

The result could have been worse, so much worse. For the most part, Day took the proverbial foot off the gas in the second half, and a few of his starters got a rest at an opportune time (even highly-touted freshman QB Quinn Ewers saw some snaps). Next week, the Buckeyes play at Michigan in The Game—to this point, the biggest game of the 2021 season.

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