Defense, special teams do it for Buckeyes

The Ohio State offense did very little in Saturday's 16-3 win over Purdue, but it didn't need to, thanks to Malcolm Jenkins and his defensive cohorts. Jenkins blocked a punt that Etienne Sabino (of whom I'd never heard) returned for a touchdown, and later added an interception that any one of four Buckeyes could have had.

Terrelle Pryor and the Buckeye O only gained 222 yards on the day, to Purdue's 298 yards; and only managed 14 first downs, to Purdue's 18. They didn't score an offensive touchdown, but did set up three field goals, which adds up to three times as many points as the Boilermakers' offense managed. The OSU D was impressive, keeping Purdue from getting inside the 30 until the last half-minute of the game.

Pryor, quite simply, struggled. He tried to do too much with his legs, which turned a couple of small gains into big losses. I recall one play in particular in the third quarter, in which Pryor faked a handoff to Beanie Wells and then took it off-tackle himself. First off, if he'd actually given the ball to Wells, he'd have had about a 10-foot hole to run through, and would have probably picked up at least 10 or 15 yards. I accept that if the play calls for a fake, you can't just give the back the ball, because he's not expecting it; but Pryor could have seen the soft spot in the defense and called an audible. Maybe that's too much to ask of a freshman quarterback. Anyway, once Pryor took the ball, it looked like he could have made about three or four yards if he'd cut up the field early, but instead he tried to cut it outside and wound up losing a couple of yards. But he's learning, he's obviously got a lot of talent, and the most important thing was the W.