Moment of the Game: Ohio State bows but doesn’t break, forcing red zone turnover

The Buckeyes are arguably the best team in the country when it comes to defending the red zone.

From an early football-watching age, my dad always taught me not to overreact to the first drives of any half. That is when the emotions are highest and coaches have the most time to draw up the perfect plan to attack their opponents. You would be forgiven for being upset by the Northwestern Wildcats’ first two drives, but I would extend the first-drive thinking to those drives.

NU was coming off of a bye, giving David Braun and his staff plenty of time to come up with a game plan to surprise Ohio State with things they haven’t seen on film, and to milk the clock, shortening the game as much as possible. But, when things settle down, and OSU’s staff sees what they’re working against, the better players and better coaches generally rise to the top.

Of course, I too would prefer that Ohio State dominated from start to finish, but against Power 4 teams, that’s far easier said than done, and with games against Indiana and Michigan coming up in the next two weeks, I think that the Buckeyes are more than happy to get out of Wrigley Field with a 31-7 win.

That first Northwestern drive of the game is a perfect example of what Ohio State’s defense has been so good at all season long. The Buckeyes don’t give up many yards — they led the country coming into the week allowing only 250.8 per game — but they are comfortable giving up small chunks of yardage if it means they aren’t giving up big chunks, and aren’t letting teams into the end zone.

Following a Sonny Styles sack (aided by Jack Sawyer who got in there first), the Wildcats found themselves in a 3rd-and-13 from their own 23-yard line. Looking to avoid any major mistakes, the Cats drew up an inside handoff to running back Cam Porter who took it right to the line to gain.

That was the first big play of what would be an exceedingly promising opening drive. There was a 20-yard completion to Bryce Kirtz, a 15-yard pass to Marshall Lang, and a handful of runs positive runs mixed in as well. Perhaps more importantly, Northwestern remained in the huddle until 10 seconds left on the play clock, not snapping until it was down to 1 or 2 seconds.

Having held the ball for over six minutes Chicago’s Big Ten team got down inside OSU’s red zone and threatened to get on the scoreboard before the Buckeyes even got the ball. However, that was not meant to be.

On 3rd-and-7 from Ohio State’s 18, quarterback Jack Lausch found nobody open so he decided to scramble and attempt to pick up the first down, or at least get his kicker a little bit closer for a first-drive coward field goal… but Jack Sawyer had different ideas.

After Lausch picked up a few yards, he was getting ready to go down a few yards short of the sticks, the Ohio State defensive end solidly hit the QB from behind, punching the back with his right hand. The ball pops out and bounces directly into the waiting hands of Davison Igbinosun, ending a drive that took 6:56 and brought the “home team” to the Buckeyes’ 15-yard line.

This bend-but-don’t-break approach has been a trademark of the Buckeyes all season long. While Northwestern took a 7-0 lead on their following drive, bringing its own issues — not least of which is the mile-wide running lane up the middle whenever the OSU defense blitzes — defensive coordinator Jim Knowles’ unit does deserve credit for turning teams away when the field gets short.

With multiple goal-line stands in recent weeks, coming into the game at Wrigley Field, the Buckeyes were second nationally in opponents’ red zone efficiency, allowing scores on only 57.89% of opportunities and first when it comes to giving up touchdowns (31.58%).

While the defense giving up yards against overmatched offenses can be frustrating for fans, none of this is a coincidence. Knowles knows that his guys are better than teams like Northwestern, so he is looking to guard against home runs (no Wrigley Field pun intended), so he is Ernie Banksing (ok, that pun was intended) on his players to keep everything in front of them and force the Cats to string together multiple plays to get in the end zone.

On Northwestern’s first two drives, Braun’s squad was able to put together extended drives, but Knowles’ philosophy in games like this works for a reason, when you have the decided talent advantage, yeah, the other team might put together a few nice drives, but it is nearly impossible to do it consistently enough to pull the upset, and that’s what we saw in Wrigleyville today.