The Ohio State football team went on the road against Notre Dame two weeks ago and beat a top-10 Fighting Irish team on a last second touchdown. The Buckeyes trailed late in the game and Notre Dame had the football and had every chance to win, but some questionable decisions and missed plays (dropped interception, only having 10 players on the field for the final two plays) cost them the game. The Buckeyes were extremely fortunate to come out of South Bend with a win, and after the game, Ryan Day called out Lou Holtz for saying his Ohio State team wasn't tough, and he preached about the physicality that his team has.
Following the win against Notre Dame, the Buckeyes had their bye-week, and many prominent college football figures spent the week bashing Ryan Day for his postgame rant. Much of the country continued to poke fun at the Buckeyes, so when they took on Maryland football at home on Saturday, they needed to come out and make a statement. That didn't really happen.
Maryland football jumped on Ohio State football early in this one, and Buckeye fans should certainly be a little bit concerned with how the team looks right now. Ohio State ended up pulling away and they won 37-17, but anyone that watched that game knows that the final score doesn't really indicate how that matchup went.
The Terrapins jumped out to a 10-0 lead, but at that point, it probably should've been 13 or 17-0. On the previous drive, Maryland had a fourth and one that should've been a relatively easily conversion, but a very questionable play call from offensive coordinator Josh Gattis led to a turnover on down. Gattis repeatedly hurt his team's chances to win this one.
Maryland also shot themselves in the foot on the next drive. They had the ball up 10-0, and Taulia Tagovailoa threw a pick six that made it 10-7. When you're trying to upset a top-five team on the road, that can't happen. It got the Buckeyes back in the game, and it completely changed the momentum of the contest.
Of all the mistakes that the Terrapins made, the one at the end of the first half was the most puzzling. The Terrapins had zero timeouts and they were deep in Ohio State territory, and with 10 seconds on the clock, they completed a pass in the middle of the field that led to the clock winding down to zeros, and Maryland wasn't able to even attempt a field goal. Again, that simply can't happen. The Terps should've been up 16-3 at half at worst, and the touchdown they scored at the beginning of the second half would've made it a 23-3 game. Instead it was 10-10 at the break.
The moral of the story is that if Ohio State was playing a team with the caliber of Michigan football or Penn State football, the game would've been over at halftime. The Buckeyes were dominated at the line of scrimmage by a middle of the pack Big Ten team, and if the Buckeyes don't clean things up quickly, they could be in some trouble down the road.
Ryan Day preached about toughness and physicality after the win against Notre Dame, and then his team went out and got out-toughed by Maryland severely in the first half. Ohio State is a good football team, but they can't start games like that against good teams and expect to win.
The toughest games left on the Buckeyes' schedule are home against Penn State, at Wisconsin and at Michigan. If Ohio State continues to play this way, those could very well all end up being losses and they could finish the season 9-3. There's a lot of time to tune things up, but Ohio State football fans should definitely be concerned after seeing today's performance against Maryland.
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