College Football is finally back! With that comes the early-season buy games for top programs. The Ohio State Buckeyes had their first of two buy-games on Saturday, facing off with the Ball State Cardinals. As expected, OSU came out and handled business in week one, dominating the Cardinals 56-3.

Quick Points

-Wide receiver Jeremiah Smith and quarterback Julian Sayin have already begun their campaign as the best quarterback-wide receiver duo in the country. The two connected quickly, scoring a 48-yard touchdown for OSU’s first score of the season. Late in the second quarter, the Buckeyes ran a two-minute drill to make it 28-3 at halftime. The drive was 90 yards long, with Smith adding 71 of them. He closed the half with a route over the middle where Sayin found him and he toe-tapped his way to his second touchdown. Sayin also added a passing touchdown to wideout Devin McCuin and ran in another himself earlier on.

-The rushing game for the Buckeyes struggled early, but proved to be extremely versatile when used properly. Four different players made significant contributions. Ja’Kobi Jackson and Bo Jackson led the team with 83 yards and a touchdown each. Ja’Kobi scored on a 49-yard run and Bo did on a 65-yarder. Legend Bey added 37 yards and Isaiah West produced 27 of his own.

-After struggles in past seasons with kicking for OSU, Connor Hawkins was perfect on the day, going 7/7 on extra points.

-The defense limited Ball State to 165 total yards on Saturday and three points. Those came on an impressive 54 yard field goal by Cardinals’ kicker Brody Boehm. The Cardinals were also held to a whopping 21% conversion rate on third downs.

-There are two small concerns for the Buckeyes. One was the number of penalties for the Buckeyes, as they committed nine of them for a total of 81 yards. Ball State only committed three for fifteen yards. The other is the fact that OSU was only able to record one sack against an offensive line that is nowhere near elite.

Key Statlines

Julian Sayin: 320 yards, 4 TDs

Jeremiah Smith: 8 receptions, 151 yards, 2 touchdowns

Devin McCuin: 6 receptions, 97 yards, touchdown

Bo Jackson: 83 yards, touchdown

Ja’Kobi Jackson: 83 yards, touchdown

Legend Bey: 6 carries, 2 receptions, 74 total yards, touchdown

Riley Pettijohn: 6 tackles, 0.5 TFLs

Tarvos Alford: 5 tackles, 0.5 TFL, INT

Epi Sitanieli: 2 tackles, 1 sack, 1 TFL

Devin Sanchez: 2 tackles, 2 PDs

Thoughts from Coach Day

Ryan Day had some thoughts from the post-game press conference on the Buckeyes’ performance on Saturday, read them below.

On the opening kickoff, freshman Legend Bey brought the ball out of the end zone when he should have taken the touchback, then did it again later in the first half. Day talked about this in the postgame press conference.

“What we can’t do is make the same mistake twice,” Day said. “Nobody felt worse than Legend on that, but those are trust things that we’re going to have to continue to work on, to build trust within the coaches and the teammates and the team.”

The offensive line made multiple rotations throughout the game to help slow down Ball State’s pass rush. In between drives, iPads were used to point out new things in schemes that OSU may have missed in the offseason.

“That is the flexibility that we have, so identifying what those are, making sure the communication is good and then trusting your training,” Day said. “That’s why it was good to play this game before we went down to Texas”

One last quote from Day, hopefully it fires up fans for next weekend:

“The minute we leave the locker room, it’s onto Texas.”

Wrap-Up

The Buckeyes handled business this weekend, just as they needed to do. The offense was just as high-flying as expected, with Jeremiah Smith and Julian Sayin starting their respective Heisman campaigns. Defensively, a strong performance was shown, locking down Ball State all game long. This was a great season opener to work out any kinks, now, onto Texas. SSM will have expanded coverage for OSU-Texas this week! Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss it.

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