Quinshon Judkins showed early lightning with an 86-yard sprint for a touchdown. He finished with 173 yards on 14 carries. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Sonny Fulks)
Ohio State did what it wanted on offense Saturday, made adjustments on defense, and finished its preparations for Big Ten play by putting all of its offensive weapons on display.
Columbus, OH – Thunder can be scary, but it’s just noise. Lightning, however, strikes fear.
Lightning won Saturday.
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On the hottest of September days at the old Horseshoe, Marshall’s Thundering Herd made rumblings in the first half that as a heavy underdog they might be capable of making it a game.
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But throughout the first half – with more to come in the second half – the Buckeyes showed why Marshall coach Charles Huff jokingly offered Ohio State’s fast guys a Tudor’s Biscuit World NIL deal this week if they would transfer to Huntington, West Virginia.
The No. 3 and 3-0 Buckeyes showed that their lightning speed – with some serious running-game thunder thrown in – is no joke in a 49-14 victory.
When the score hit 42-14 at the end of the third quarter, the Buckeyes had struck for touchdowns of 68, 86, 40 and 53 yards. Those four plays totaled 247 yards. Marshall (1-2) at the time had 227 yards of offense.
The final tallies: Ohio State 569 yards; Marshall 264 yards; Ohio State’s seven TD plays, 268 yards.
After many touchdowns had been scored, quarterback Will Howard said he was talking to the other quarterbacks about how explosive the playmakers are.
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“If we block everything up, every play could be a touchdown,” Howard said. “It’s exciting.”
The game began with a mix of thunder and lightning. The Herd stomped 75 yards in 13 plays and pounded into the end zone on the final three plays beginning at the four, the clincher a one-yard dive by running back Ethan Payne.
Then lightning struck. On Ohio State’s second play, Howard passed to Emeka Egbuka out to the right behind the line of scrimmage. All he needed was a block or two and the race was on. Egbuka cruised untouched to a 68-yard touchdown to tie the score 7-7.
Emeka Egbuka scored on a 68-yard catch-and-run on the Buckeyes’ second play from scrimmage.
Egbuka remembered the blocks: tight end Gee Scott on the safety and wide receiver Carnell Tate farther down the field.
“I’m just very thankful for the people blocking for me,” Egbuka said. “It was by no feat of my own that I was able to score.”
That’s how the Buckeyes scored time and again as they built a 28-14 halftime lead and 42-14 lead after three quarters. All thanks to an offensive line that welcomed back left guard Donovan Jackson, tight ends who know their first job is to block and receivers who finish plays whether they catch the ball or not.
Egbuka caught five passes for 117 yards, Tate caught four for 64 yards and Jeremiah Smith caught three for 70 yards, including a 53-yard catch-and-run touchdown in the third quarter.
“I’ve never seen a more selfless group of receivers, and all of them are unbelievably talented,” Howard said. “They all want to genuinely see each other succeed. They all want to block for each other.”
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The Buckeyes passed for 289 yards with Howard getting 275 of those. He likes to talk about how his receivers’ ability to turn short passes into long touchdowns makes his job easier. And the rushing duo of Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson nearly matched the passing game with most of the team’s 280 ground yards.
“It’s going to be hard to really stop our running game, hard to stop our passing attack,” Egbuka said. “We have Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson, probably the best college football duo that I’ve ever seen.”
Example 1A, and 1B…TreVeyon Henderson complemented Judkins’ big day with 76 yards and two touchdowns on just six carries.
Judkins carried 14 times for 173 yards and Henderson six times for 76 yards. Both scored two touchdowns.
Henderson is as healthy as he’s been since early in his freshman season and his explosive speed is back.
On his first touchdown, he finished the Buckeyes’ first-half scoring on a 14-yard counter play. He made a nice cutback in the hole, then sped down the sideline. With the turf temperature well above 100 degrees, he was a strike of heat lightning.
On Henderson’s second touchdown, he started the second-half scoring with a 40-yard run behind left tackle Josh Simmons and tight end Will Kacmarek. And he showed some thunder with a stiff arm to the face of a helpless defender and some lightning with a high-stepping speed finish to the goal line.
Judkins showed speed and power as well on his two touchdowns. His second-quarter 86-yard bolt in the second quarter was the longest of his career and tied for the third longest in school history with J.T. Barrett in 2014.
The second longest of 87 yards was by a player everyone remembers: Eddie George in 1995. The longest is 88 yards by Morris Bradshaw in 1971, a player not many will remember.
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But it’s more than safe to say that Judkins will be remembered long past this season. And as cool as 86 yards is, his six-yarder in the fourth quarter will get the attention in the meeting rooms this week.
Judkins stiff-armed Marshall 239-pound linebacker Landyn Watson and decleated him at the line of scrimmage. Howard called it a superhero slam.
It was thunderous.
Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith fights Marshall’s Josh Moten for this catch in the first quarter.
“The mindset of me and my teammates as a whole is to play with bad intentions,” Judkins said.
Howard, like Judkins, is a transfer playing his first season at Ohio State. He is enjoying handing off to Judkins and watching what happens.
“He’s a different beast,” Howard said. “He’s physical, he’s fast, and you saw that breakaway run. There’s not much that that guy can’t do. On top of that, he’s one of my favorite people on the team.”
The offense’s goal the past couple seasons was to be balanced in a way that defenses feared whatever was coming. But the running game wasn’t striking fear in any defense. Now, with a veteran offensive line, whatever play the Buckeyes run, it’s clear that defenses must be concerned about breakaway speed and break-your-spirit thunder by land and by the air.
Howard is at the controls and Day and Kelly are happy with his ability to make the right reads and be enough of a dual threat to create doubt in defenders’ minds about where the ball might end up.
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And from the beginning of this season, the receiving corps has been in contention for best in the nation like it has been every season under position coach Brian Hartline. Now the Judkins-Henderson combo is vying for best backfield in the nation. That gives offensive coordinator Chip Kelly lots of options depending on the matchups and his mood.
“Some plays they’re going to be a little more finesse, some plays are going to be a little more downhill and right at you,” Howard said. “It’s everything.”
The offensive production is also a product of what Day says often about no one caring who gets the credit.
On Judkins’ final touchdown, the one where he went Beastmode on the linebacker, TV replays showed Henderson on the sideline raising his arms to signal touchdown.
And while Smith got all the attention in the first two games with big plays as the true freshman phenom, Egbuka was cheering every play.
“Obviously it’s fun to be able to perform at a very high level,” Egbuka said of his big day. “But I never really try to hang my hat on the statistics. If I had zero catches today, but I still ran all the right routes and did all the right things, it doesn’t make me any less of a player. I could have gone for 300 yards today, but that’s just because the ball came my way.”
Ohio State’s Caden Curry pressures Marshall quarterback Stone Earle during Saturday’s 49-14 Buckeye win.
The thought before the season was that the offense didn’t have to be great because the defense is so good. That idea hasn’t flipped, but the two sides of the ball are becoming more complementary of each other.
So much so that those early Thundering Herd rumblings that meant the defense allowed its first touchdowns this season on time-consuming drives, is not as worrisome as it seemed in the moment. The Herd’s air-raid, throw-it-quickly offense mixed with quarterback runs created matchup issues at times. And the Herd converted 6 of 11 third downs in the first half.
“Marshall did a nice job with their style of play,” Day said. “There’s still a lot of things that we’re going to watch on this film, and we’re not going to be pleased with overall execution. I know Jim’s (Knowles) going to be that way.”
Otherwise, the Buckeyes enter Big Ten play next Saturday at Michigan State with an offense that will age the fittest of defensive coordinators.
“You never know what you’re going to get with Coach (Chip) Kelly,” Howard said. “He’s willing to do just about anything. And I think that’s cool part about it – keeps defenses on their toes.”
And listening for thunder and watching for lightning.
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