INDIANAPOLIS—Gary Andersen rarely passes up the opportunity to praise his team’s ability to fight through adversity. The head coach pays Wisconsin this compliment after nearly every game, citing its ability to bounce back after slow starts, glaring mistakes and blown plays.
The Badgers could learn a thing or two about handling adversity from Ohio State. The Buckeyes unleashed an offensive onslaught Saturday night that was thoroughly embarrassing to the program and will cast a shadow over the entire 2014 campaign. To make matters worse, Ohio State’s 59-point, 558-yard performance was engineered by a quarterback who began the season as the third-stringer.
Sophomore Cardale Jones, filling in for J.T. Barrett, who was filling in for Braxton Miller, gashed the Badgers for 257 yards and three touchdowns through the air. However, it was the two-man running game that Jones, in the first start of his career, played with sophomore running back Ezekiel Elliott that doomed UW.
Although the 6-foot-5-inch, 250-pound quarterback came in to the game untested, Wisconsin’s defense consistently overcommitted to Jones on the read option, opening rushing lanes for Elliott to accrue 220 yards on the ground.
Ohio State exposed this defensive deficiency late in the first quarter. After gaining 12 yards on a dive up the middle, Jones and Elliott executed the read option to textbook perfection. Jones handed the ball to Elliott and took off around the right tackle, freezing senior linebacker Derek Landisch and drawing redshirt senior safety Peniel Jean with him. Meanwhile, the defensive line aggressively slanted left, which allowed Ohio State’s lineman to wash them out and open a huge hole up the middle. Elliott split the gap between Landisch and Jean and the defensive lineman and ran 81 yards untouched for a score.
Senior linebacker Marcus Trotter was at a loss to explain the missed gap assignments that plagued UW’s defense.
“They’re very good, athletic guys,” Trotter said of Jones and Elliott. “We misfit so many things, I’d probably say every other play we misfit something. I just don’t know why. Some guys didn’t make plays on a ball when they should have, but that’s just what life is, adversity is going to strike and you’ve got to be a man about it.”
The adversity created by Elliott’s huge run, the first of his two touchdowns, did not stimulate much of change in Wisconsin’s play.
In total, Ohio State gained 254 rushing yards on read option plays. Despite rarely keeping the ball himself, Jones consistently drew attention after handing off which, like on Elliott’s first touchdown run, forced the defense out of position and put Wisconsin on its heels.
Ohio State eclipsed Wisconsin’s average points allowed per game (16.8) less than a minute into the second quarter, and more than doubled the amount of yards it allows on average (260.3). The Buckeyes were able to do this despite holding on to the ball for seven fewer minutes than UW.
“Yeah, very uncharacteristic day for our defense,” Andersen said. “You would know that I guess. If you hadn’t seen us play, you wouldn’t know that. But completely uncharacteristic of our defense. I thought they played hard. Didn’t see loafs, didn’t see any quit. Saw an offensive line that locked us up really good at the point of attack. I saw some talented players making some plays.”
Unlike in previous games this season, Wisconsin’s defense failed to make adjustments based on what the offense showed them. The Badgers conceded 17 early points to both Nebraska and Minnesota, but they were able to tighten up their mechanics and negate the opponent’s game plan.
No such turnaround took place against Ohio State. Redshirt senior nose guard Warren Herring described the difficulty the Badgers had in the trenches.
“Just got to be fundamentally sound,” Herring said. “They capitalized on opportunities, open gaps and things like that. That’s on the defensive front, that’s on the defensive line as well. Staying gap sound, just flying around and playing football.”
It’s hard to find a bright spot in Wisconsin’s defensive performance. Ohio State is unquestionably a more talented team, but not to the degree where a 59-0 stomping should be expected. It was the mental errors, missed assignments and inability to adapt to the read option that cost Wisconsin. The fight against adversity lives on.
