We don’t have much to add to the summary as we only watched the last ten minutes of the game. What a terrible ten minutes they were though, as the Buckeyes were outscored 22-7 in that time. Had Indiana’s second onside kick been successful the tone of this post might be different.
Not a lot different though, because this feels like a loss. Sweating out a win against a team like Indiana is not the kind of excitement we’re looking for in this day and age. Hanging upside down over a sleeping assassination target with only a 2mm monofilament line keeping us from ruining the “surprise,” sure.
The officiating in the ten minutes we watched was questionable, to say the least. There were several penalties called that were dubious, and apparently there were several replay reviews that all went against the visiting team. That combined with the shady replay non-reversal in South Bend earlier in the day and, well, the officials working in the Hoosier state didn’t have a very good day.
Referees don’t tackle or cover receivers, however, and the bulk of last night’s stress can be chalked up to yet another bend-but-don’t-break-too-much performance by an injury-riddled Buckeye defense. We have never been the ones lining up first on the FIRE [insert coach here] bandwagons but many of the problems we’ve witnessed this season seem to have coaching as their ultimate cause. Poor tackling, lack of focus, questionable schemes…all these are things that good coaching can correct. Urban said after the game that he will be looking in on the defense more going forward than he has so far – we’ll see if that makes a difference.
Finally, no one loves Devin Smith more than we do, except perhaps his family and significant other, but he had a few more instances today of dropping sure touchdowns. Let’s hope he has gotten them all out of his system – despite the drops he still had a day most D-I receivers would kill for: 2 catches for 206 yards and 2 TDs.