Throughout the last week Craig Krenzel faced so much scrutiny it seemed the fickle Buckeye Nation had forgotten all about last year’s national championship. Still very much in the hunt for another title, No. 6 Ohio State, its quarterback and the rest of the offense roared back to life downing No. 14 Michigan State 33-23 Saturday at Ohio Stadium.

Krenzel rebounded from last week’s injury by going 12-of-23 through the air for 213 yards and three touchdowns. While Krenzel threw one interception, back-up Scott McMullen did not see any action until the Buckeyes were up 30-17 midway through the fourth quarter.

“I wasn’t motivated by being replaced, I was motivated by offensively we haven’t done as well as we should have all year long,” Krenzel said. “And we know down the stretch of this season that we’re going to need to put some points on the board to help our defense out and our special teams out.”

Aiding Krenzel in his return was running back Lydell Ross, who finally had a big game against a formidable defense. He ran through the Spartans’ defense, which had only been allowing 101 yards per game for 127 yards.

“We want to be balanced,” said coach Jim Tressel. “We want to run for 200 and throw for 250. I’m not sure how it ended up. We want to score 40 but we were forced to kick four field goals, and we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Mike Nugent helped hold off Michigan State by kicking three of his four field goals in the second half.

The win boosts Ohio State’s record to 9-1 and 5-1 in the Big Ten and sets up another showdown for first place in the Big Ten against visiting Purdue this Saturday.

Michigan State falls off pace in the conference chase and is now 7-3 overall and 4-2 in the league.

Following half-time, the Buckeyes executed the offense fans have been waiting to see all season. On eight plays, they rolled down the field to score on a 2-yard touchdown pass from Krenzel to Ryan Hamby with 11:42 left in the third. Krenzel started the quarter with tosses of 29 and 18 yards to Jenkins and Roy Hall respectively. OSU then went back to Ross, who had 116 yards in the second half and ran for 21 yards on five tries on the drive.

“We changed it up all a little bit (in the second half), we ran the ball differently, and we had some other plays,” Ross said. “We got together at half and we wanted to go out and have a big game.”

Just 12 seconds later, DeAndra Cobb returned the kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown, his third of the season to make it 24-17. It was the first time OSU surrendered a kickoff return for a touchdown since 1984.

The return helped the Spartans stay in the game after the Buckeye defense found ways to keep the high-powered offense out of the end zone. When MSU quarterback Jeff Smoker moved his team 95 yards on just seven plays for the games first touchdown, it appeared they were heading toward a big day.

Smoker completed 35 of his 55 attempts for 351 yards and two touchdowns along with two interceptions.

Early in the contest, Smoker sat back in the pocket, virtually untouched, and was able to pick apart the defense.

“We felt we weren’t really getting pressure on him at the beginning of the game, and we felt that individually we had to step our game up and help out the secondary,” OSU defensive end Will Smith said. “He had too much time to throw the ball.”

The Spartans ran the ball for only 5 yards on 17 attempts and did not find the end zone again until the closing moments of the game.

Instead the Buckeye offense showed up with a little help from its defense. Following Nugent’s first field goal of the game, Smoker had his unit on the move again into OSU territory looking to put the hosts in a big hole early. OSU sophomore strong safety Tyler Everett picked off the ball and returned it 66 yards to set up the offense and end the threat.

Back in the driver’s seat, Krenzel made a big play on third down in the red zone. With the pocket collapsing, he side-stepped the heavy pressure to find tight end Ben Hartsock open along the sideline for a 17-yard touchdown to give OSU the 10-7 lead with 10:53 left in the half.

A little over three minutes later Krenzel was at it again, needing three plays to go 60 yards to make the game 17-7. After he connected with Jenkins for a 21-yard toss to start the drive, the senior quarterback found Santonio Holmes who out-maneuvered four defenders and dove into the end zone for the 37-yard score.