Will Howard threw for 228 yards and three touchdowns in his Ohio State debut. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Sonny Fulks)
Will Howard and Jeremiah Smith shined in their Ohio State debuts, the defense more than showed up as expected and the Buckeyes started a season of high expectations with a runaway second half.
Columbus, OH – New Ohio State quarterback Will Howard soaked in everything Saturday before, during and after his first game in The Horseshoe.
He enjoyed learning all the new traditions, the skull session, the 102,011 fans and, most importantly, winning.
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“It’s a pretty freaking cool stadium,” he said.
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And while he was talking about how pleased he was about how the offense found rhythm in the second half after a dissonate first half, he paused, looked around the room and made everyone laugh.
“Is it hot in here?” he said, tugging at his sweat-soaked shirt.
Yes, it was.
Then, with sweat beading on his forehead and dripping to the floor a couple times, he continued to answer questions about the No. 2 Buckeyes’ 52-6 no-sweat, season-opening victory over Akron that answered a few questions.
“First time playing in the Shoe you’ve just got to settle in and play football,” Howard said. “We did a good job of that in the second half.”
The defense gave them a chance…until the offense got rolling in the second half. Jack Sawyer knocks out Akron quarterback Ben Finley with this hit in the third quarter.
Howard’s stat line is one evidence of the Buckeyes deflecting the heat they might have felt walking to the locker room at halftime with a 17-3 lead. First half: 10 of 21, 116 yards, two touchdowns. Second half: 7 of 7, 116 yards, one touchdown. Final stats: 17 of 28, 228 yards, three touchdowns.
“I thought he had pretty good poise the whole day,” head coach Ryan Day said. “He is a more experienced guy, but he’s in a new offense in a new environment.”
The first half closely resembled last season’s offense.
True freshman receiver Jeremiah Smith filled the role of Marvin Harrison Jr. with two touchdown catches, one on a 16-yard, back-shoulder, adjust-to-the-ball snag, the other a 9-yard slant in which the defender failed to block his route to the inside of the field. The rest of it – the exception being Howard’s obvious superior pocket presence to Kyle McCord’s – lacked consistent execution passing or running.
A game-opening three-and-out made Akron out to be smarter than the average Zip for deferring to the second half. The Zips’ reward: a 3-0 lead.
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But the Howard-Smith connection created a 17-3 halftime lead. Smith finished with six receptions for 92 yards.
“If he’s pressed and it’s one on one, put it up, he’ll make the play, and that’s exactly what he did,” Howard said of the first touchdown.
He can fly…and freshman Jeremiah Smith crowned his Buckeye debut with a pair of touchdowns.
Smith didn’t seem in awe of his memorable debut.
“My coaches prepared me great throughout the week and just scheming things up for me to get the ball,” he said.
The touchdowns came after Smith committed some freshman mistakes. He dropped an inside screen pass on the second play of the game that looked set up to spring him for a big game if not a touchdown. Later the officials flagged him for illegal formation.
“I can’t really explain that one, but when I came to the side I was mad at myself,” Smith said of the drop. “It’s football. You got more football to play. You got four quarters of football. So just move on.”
The coaches moved on, too. They didn’t have a knee-jerk reaction and sit him on the bench for even one play or a series.
“There were no words said,” Howard said. “None of us were worried about him at all. It’s that next-play mentality. Mental toughness is the ability to move on to the next most important thing.”
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Day knows what the team has in Smith so much so that he’s been cautious about saying much until Smith proved himself in a game. Day broke his silence Saturday.
“Sometimes you look at him you don’t even think he’s quite human, but he is,” Day said. “He’s going to make a few early mistakes, but not very many. You can see the talent there. Typically, somebody with that type of talent doesn’t have the discipline, the focus that he does. Nobody even batted an eye.”
Carnell Tate sidesteps a tackler on his way to a 34-yard fourth quarter touchdown.
Smith appreciated the trust shown in him to stay in the game and have plays called for him.
”They know I’m going to bounce back,” he said.
Aside from Smith touchdowns, the uneven first half that came on the heels of last season’s sputtering offense raised the level of appreciation for just how well C.J. Stroud played football for the Buckeyes. Stroud led fast-paced, big-play drives from the start that created an avalanche of points and turned competitive games into routs in a quarter or less.
The third quarter, however, would make Stroud proud.
Howard’s 45-yard deep ball to Smith set the Buckeyes up at the 2. Quinshon Judkins scored on a run up the middle on the next snap to cap a three-play, 60-yard drive in 52 seconds.
The defense fed off the sudden drive with a score of its own. Akron quarterback Tahj Bullock scrambled forward and was grabbed and held up by lineman Hero Kanu. Then fellow lineman Caden Curry, who didn’t give up on the play, hit Bullock from behind to force a fumble that safety Lathan Ransom fielded on a bounce and took 27 yards to the end zone.
On the Buckeyes’ only other possession of the third, Howard led them 75 yards in eight plays. Another true freshman, James Peoples, scored on a four-yard run in his debut for a 38-6 lead.
“One of our goals in this game was to play clean, and I feel like we didn’t really do that in the first half,” Howard said. “We just had to get together and play our game, don’t think about it too much. Play football.”
The Buckeyes were playing with three new starters on the interior of the offensive line. Seth McLaughlin, the transfer from Alabama, was at center. Tegra Tshabola started his first game, as planned, at right guard. And Austin Siereveld started at left guard in place of incumbent Donovan Jackson who was held out with a minor injury. Day said he expects Jackson to play next week. Those three, Howard, Smith and Judkins, a transfer running back from Ole Miss, played their first game in Ohio Stadium.
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“They were a little uptight early on,” Day said. “You just saw a couple things off, and we got ourselves off schedule. Then we started to play a little looser, which is the way we need to play.”
The running game had good runs and runs that were shut down, a lot like last year. The Buckeyes finished with 182 yards on the ground. Judkins had 55 on 13 carries and TreVeyon Henderson had 65 on eight carries.
“(Offensive coordinator) Chip (Kelly) did a nice job of continually pushing the run,” Day said. “You can see that start to take its effect in the second half. He’s got a long-term vision about what he wants to establish, what he wants his offense to look like.”
The defense didn’t disappoint. Akron tried deception, especially early, and found some success. But, mostly because of a pass rush that produced five sacks, the Zips were limited to short passes toward the sideline that totaled 130 yards and runs that managed only 47 yards.
Cody Simon sat out with a minor injury, which moved Sonny Styles, who played safety last year, over from Will linebacker to Mike. C.J. Hicks started at Will.
Ohio State’s Brandon Inniss enjoys a convoy of blockers during this third quarter punt return.
“Very impressed with playing his real first game at linebacker in the position that he really hadn’t been training in for the majority of spring and fall,” Day said of Styles. “He’s very conscientious, very smart, and handled that very, very well.”
In the fourth, Howard got one more series and hit Carnell Tate on a 34-yard touchdown for a 45-6 lead. Tate caught the ball in stride over the middle, smoothly juked a defender at the 15, and sprinted to the end zone.
The exclamation point: Linebacker Gabe Powers from Marysville high-pointed a tipped pass and returned it 29 yards for the final points.
The long hot day was over. The Buckeyes, after a slow start, played well, showed they’ve found a quarterback, debuted a freshman phenom and the defense dominated as expected.
And if you ask Howard, there’s only one thing left to fix.
During the postgame interviews, don’t turn off the air conditioning.
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