No. 2 Ohio State grinds out win over No. 5 Notre Dame
No. 2 Ohio State scored its fewest factors since 2018 in a 21-10 win over No. 5 Notre Dame on Saturday night time.
The high-flying Buckeye offense was slowed by a fantastic Notre Dame gameplan and an damage to star extensive receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba. However Ohio State had simply sufficient to get the job finished after preseason Heisman favourite C.J. Stroud hit Xavier Johnson for a go-ahead 24-yard TD with 17 seconds left within the third quarter. The catch was Johnson’s first collegiate TD.
Ohio State took a 7-3 lead on Notre Dame within the first quarter when Stroud hit Emeka Egbuka for a 31-yard TD. However Notre Dame drove 87 yards in 10 performs at first of the second quarter and took a 10-7 lead into halftime after a missed Ohio State subject aim within the waning seconds of the second quarter.
Smith-Njigba entered 2022 as the most effective receivers within the nation after he put up over 300 yards receiving in a Rose Bowl win over Utah. However he appeared to injure his left leg as he was tackled awkwardly early within the first quarter and noticed restricted enjoying time the remainder of the half. Smith Njigba then spent the second half on the sidelines after recording simply two catches for 3 yards.
The Buckeyes put the sport away with lower than 5 minutes to go on a TD run by Miyan Williams. That run capped a 95-yard drive that took over seven minutes off the clock within the fourth quarter as Ohio State lastly discovered a approach to transfer the ball persistently on Notre Dame’s protection.
Till Saturday night time, the Buckeyes hadn’t scored 21 factors or fewer in a single sport since scoring 20 in a 2018 loss to Iowa. Stroud completed the sport with 223 yards and accomplished 24 of his 34 makes an attempt.
The offense’s lack of explosiveness all through the sport meant that Ohio State needed to depend on its protection. And as many Buckeyes followers would attest, that will have been a dangerous proposition during the last couple years. However Ohio State’s first sport underneath new defensive coordinator Jim Knowles was successful. Notre Dame’s conservative gameplan with QB Tyler Buchner didn’t discover any holes within the Buckeye secondary and punted six consecutive occasions after its landing drive.
Not a nasty debut for Marcus Freeman’s Irish
The Irish entered Saturday’s sport as 17-point underdogs. And whereas Notre Dame is much from being a program the place conserving it shut towards a top-five crew is an achievement, there’s actually numerous positives for Notre Dame followers to remove from Marcus Freeman’s head teaching debut.
The protection seems to be superb as soon as once more because it compelled Stroud to look beneath early and sometimes. The absence of Smith-Njigba possible helped, nevertheless it’s unlikely that Notre Dame’s defensive gameplan would have deviated an excessive amount of had he performed the whole sport.
If there’s a concern it was the shortcoming to create a constant run sport for Buchner to capitalize on through play-action. Notre Dame averaged lower than three yards a carry and racked up a majority of its yards on its two scoring drives. Notre Dame had 158 yards on the drives that led to its 10 factors and 95 yards on its eight different possessions.
Notre Dame’s competitiveness additionally means that you would be able to’t write off the Irish from the playoff dialog after Week 1. Yeah, speaking in regards to the playoff after the primary weekend of the season is extraordinarily untimely, but when Ohio State is pretty much as good as all of us count on it is going to be over the course of the season and Notre Dame wins its video games towards a manageable schedule, the Irish could be 7-1 after they play Clemson on Nov. 5.
Ohio State, in the meantime, now hopes that Smith-Njigba’s damage isn’t too severe and faces video games as large house favorites vs. Arkansas State and Toledo earlier than Wisconsin visits on Sep. 24 in a possible Huge Ten title sport preview.
