Buckeyes 34, Golden Gophers 21

Now that looked like a team that showed up to play...for the most part.

The Good
Offense
When your starting quarterback only throws 13 passes, you must be doing something right. Terrelle Pryor showed why he was the top recruit in the country, running for 97 yards on just 8 carries. Beanie needed only 14 carries to get 105 yards. Dan Herron chipped in for another 51 yards. It was nice to see Brian Robiskie again. Someone must have gotten him the message that he needed to make himself noticeable if he plans on getting drafted. (Or maybe he saw my question of the week.) The offense also had some bona fide highlights. Beanie hurdling that defender was pretty sweet. I absolutely loved when Pryor got to the sideline and lowered his shoulder to knock a defender to the ground before he went out of bounds. Robiskie's second TD grab was pretty impressive.

Defense
Speaking of players showing up again...it was nice to see Laurinaitis have a big game. The defense was actually able to get some pressure on Weber, and come up with some tackles for a loss. We haven't seen enough of that from the defense yet. I don't care who the opponent is, if you allow only 80 rushing yards, you've done pretty well. Malcolm Jenkins had a pretty solid game, as did Ross Homan and Curtis Terry. Nathan Williams didn't show up with a lot of big numbers in the stats, but I liked what I saw from him.

The Bad
I've found this year that it's easier to group all of the bad together instead of dividing it between the offense and defense. This wasn't a horrible thing, but I wouldn't have minded a little more variety on first down. The Buckeyes threw (to the tight end!) on the first play of the game. After that, on nearly every first down for at least the rest of the first half, the Buckeyes ran the ball right behind the center. There were a few times when the defense could have done a much better job of containing the runner or receiver. In the first half, the Buckeyes once again settled for field goals. Granted, they got away with it, but it would be nice to see them put an opponent away more definitively.

The Ugly
Penalties. Frankly, that's all I need to say about that. Sure, some of the penalties were questionable, but 10 penalties for 90 yards is unacceptable. As far as I'm concerned, only one other thing goes here: Beanie's fumble. It was a good play by the defender, no question about it, particularly since Beanie was more or less tied up. Still, that's the kind of thing that can swing momentum.

Under the Radar Player of the Game
In a game like this, it's not easy to pick an Under the Radar player of the game, simply because there was no play that turned the tide. But, in this case, it is relatively easy. When the offense can rack up nearly 300 yards rushing, that means the offensive line did its job. I've been critical of the offensive line so far this year, so I feel I should recognize the guys up front for a job well done in this game.

I will not be able to catch the next two games, so I would like to enlist your help. For the Wisconsin and Purdue games, perhaps you could e-mail your comments about the game to me, and I can compile and post them here. If you want, send me your thoughts and let me know who you think is the UtR player of the game.