Ohio State Football: 3 takeaways from demolition of Maryland in Week 11

No. 1 Ohio State football hosted the Maryland Terrapins in Big Ten East action. Here are three takeaways from the Buckeyes’ dominant win.

Style points are said not to matter in the grand scheme of things. However, it’s an asinine to say that teams “don’t play anyone.” You can only play your schedule; you can’t play anyone else.

Often, it isn’t simply winning but it’s how you play against the competition. Ohio State can’t help they have to play Maryland every season, and they can’t help that the Terrapins are rebuilding.

What you look for in games like this is how you play the lesser opponent. The Ohio State Buckeyes dominated the Maryland Terrapins on Saturday, 73-14. They didn’t play any games, or fool around. It was a business-like approach by the Buckeyes.

The offense was efficient and clean all game long. Justin Fields is playing as well as any quarterback in college football. It helps when you have speed all over the field and the most underrated running back in college football.

Defensively, the Buckeyes simply took advantage of their strengths. They had the better athletes, and the Terrapins had been struggling to block for whomever has played quarterback this season. All in all a precise, clean game for the Buckeyes.

What else did we learn?

3. Ohio State’s speed is scary

Maryland has good players. Really they do. Maryland quarterback Tyrell Pigrome can fly. There was a play in the first quarter where he broke out of the pocket and Ohio State defensive end Tyreke Smith tracked him down from the weak side of the line and stopped him for a sack.

Every time the Terrapins tried to run either a stretch play or something to the wide side of the field the Ohio State linemen tracked it down. There were plays that on most teams the linebacker makes that their defensive linemen were tracking down. What’s scary about their defense is they can run at every level, but when you have tackles tracking down plays, that makes it even more difficult to scheme offensively.

We know how fast they are offensively, but J.K. Dobbins doesn’t get credit for his front end speed. He his averaging 7.0 yards per carry this season and while he is the beneficiary of a very good offensive line, when he gets to the second level, he can run past you or lay a lick on you.

They might not have the speed of their Alabama counterparts, but the Ohio State receivers hold their own. Even when Maryland tried to keep things in front of them Ohio State just ran past them.

2. Ohio State has a scary combination

Watching the Buckeyes play football it’s obvious that Ohio State is an explosive team. They are an explosive offense, and a scary defense; there’s little doubt about that. What makes them so scary is the Buckeyes play clean, efficient football. They don’t shoot themselves in the foot. In nine games, the Buckeyes have 39 penalties.

Quarterback Justin Fields is completing almost 70 percent of his passes and has only one interception. This isn’t a dink and dunk offense either as Fields is averaging close to 9.0 yards per attempt this season.

1. The Buckeyes are on a mission

Ohio State doesn’t have an issue with playing the rest of this season as the No. 1 team in the country. It’s Ohio State and wearing the scarlet and gray means being willing to take that pressure. What Ohio State is trying to do this season is erase the memories of the last two seasons. They are trying to erase the “Nightmare at Kinnick” in 2017 and the “Tyler Trent” game at Purdue in 2018. Both of those games were the primary factors in eliminating the Buckeyes from the playoff.

They are not playing with any team they have a talent advantage against. This is a Buckeyes squad that wants to remind everyone they are an elite program. So far, message sent.