While the Ohio State offense further showed its second-half supremacy in a 34-3 victory over Minnesota Saturday, the Buckeye defense controlled the game and dominated both the Golden Gopher ground and air attacks.
The Buckeye defense has only given up an impressive 38 second-half points in the past 10 games. It leads the Big Ten conference in total defense, having given up only six touchdowns all year. The Buckeyes haven’t given up a second-half touchdown in their last four games.
Most notable has been the Buckeye run defense, which over the past few games has stopped some of the nation’s premier running backs. This season, OSU is holding opponents to just under 100 rushing yards per game.
“That’s the first thing we try to do every game – we try to shut down the run,” said Buckeye freshman linebacker A.J. Hawk. “We’ve got great defensive backs, and they shut down the pass every week it seems like, so all we have to do is worry about shutting down the run.”
Coming into the game, Minnesota was the leader in Big Ten rushing, averaging 271 yards on the ground per game. They also had the league’s leading rusher in sophomore Terry Jackson II, who was sixth in the nation and came in averaging slightly over 171 yards per game.
Jackson and junior teammate Thomas Tapeh both had rushed for over 100 yards in their previous three games but combined for only 81 total yards in 24 attempts on Saturday. Jackson, who rushed for more than 200 yards in the two previous games, was limited to 49 yards on the ground.
“I think our coaches did a good job all week preparing us for that,” Hawk said. “We knew they run the ball a lot and they’ve been running on everybody, so we knew we had to stop the run first of all before anything else.”
The performance by the Buckeye defense almost mirrored its effort from last week’s matchup with Penn State as they held Nittany Lion standout Larry Johnson to only 66 yards on 16 carries. So far this year, the only running back to go over the century mark against the Buckeyes has been Wisconsin’s Anthony Davis, who carried the ball 25 times for 144 yards and a touchdown.
“We just play ball,” said defensive back Darrion Scott, who had two sacks on Saturday. “Every week at practice we take time to talk about dominating the offensive line, holding them to no yards, getting more sacks. The more you think about it, the more you talk about – the more you do it.”
Linebacker Matt Wilhelm led the team on Saturday with seven tackles. Scott and defensive back David Thompson both had punishing hits on Minnesota quarterback Asad Abdul-Khaliq.
Scott said a big change in the defense could be attributed to more awareness.
“Basically, I just think we are more comfortable in there,” he said. “We’re picking up schemes a lot more quickly then we did at the beginning of the year and we’re just adjusting to what we’re seeing out there a lot faster than what we did before.”
Safety Donnie Nickey, who had four tackles on the day and recovered his own punt block, said the defense is starting to take form.
“Part of it is confidence and the other is playing a Big Ten schedule. It’s the attitude, knowing we have a big chance to do a lot of things,” Nickey said
However, before the game, Nickey came under fire by coaches for a few comments that he made towards the strength of Minnesota’s offense, remarking that the Golden Gopher running game hadn’t yet faced the Buckeyes. He later said he didn’t feel it was a direct attack on the the Golden Gophers.
“What ended up in the Minnesota paper … I didn’t understand what was the big deal and my coaches kind of got on me about it,” Nickey said. “I thought that was an honest assessment, and I think we proved that. I think we were confident, held them to a little over 50 yards rushing or so, seven yards in the second half. I just think we played well. I knew we would play well.”
Nickey went on to say how he’s been pleased with the way the defensive has been playing.
“It’s been exciting to get out there,” he said. “Three-and-out, the offense gets the ball regardless of what they do. But hopefully you can just provide a spark. It’s just been exciting being out there, flying around, just knowing that we can take another step.”
