Ohio State looks nothing like its reputation in riding its defense to victory over Notre Dame

COLUMBUS, Ohio. – In the euphoria of Week One, immersed in the excitement of the return of college football and the delight of a tense, physical game between top-five teams, it’s impossible to decipher the context of No. 2 Ohio State’s 21-10 victory over No. 5 Notre Dame.

We need a season’s worth of games to tell us whether the Irish are worth their preseason hype. We need a healthy Jaxon Smith-Njigba, the preseason All-America wide receiver who left the Buckeyes’ lineup midway through the first quarter, to see the Ohio State offense at full strength.

But with one sultry late-summer night’s worth of evidence, we already know this much: With Jim Knowles in charge, this Buckeyes defense is much better than it was a year ago; Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud may be more dangerous when chased than left alone; and 214-pound Buckeyes running back TreVeyon Henderson is a bad man when defenses are sucking air.

An Ohio State offense that showed little of the any-given-play danger of a year ago slowly, steadily mashed its way to a decisive victory before 106,594 fans at Ohio Stadium. Time will tell us whether an Irish team with an inexperienced quarterback, little depth at wide receiver and a young coach is one of the five best teams in the nation. But that’s not something that Buckeyes coach Ryan Day wants to hear.

“We just beat the No. 5 team in the country by 11 points,” Day said. “It’s not easy to do. It’s hard.”

History says it’s hard – Ohio State never had beaten a top-five team in an opener. It may be time to point out that in 87 seasons of the Associated Press poll, this is the third time the Buckeyes have opened against a top-five team. Florida Atlantic, Oregon State and Bowling Green, their past three non-conference opening opponents, have been more the Buckeyes’ speed.

But that’s not what Day meant. He meant that his team looked nothing like its reputation. The Buckeyes had only three big plays (20-plus yards). They spent the second half grinding out first downs en route to the go-ahead and winning touchdowns, on drives of 70 and 95 yards. Henderson had only five carries in the first 40 minutes of the game. He carried it 10 times for 55 yards the rest of the way.

“Yeah, it was a struggle early on,” Day said. “We lost Jaxon and got a little out of rhythm. Early games are a little bit clunky.”

Smith-Njigba caught two passes for 3 yards before leaving the game. Day said afterward he expects his star back next week. Xavier Johnson, a former walk-on, replaced Smith-Njigba and caught the go-ahead touchdown in the third quarter, a 24-yard bullet from Stroud capitalizing on an Irish blitz.

“He’s the best receiver in the country,” Stroud said of Smith-Njigba. “Of course it affects our offense. It affects our team. But at the end of the day, we got the job done.”

Stroud was 24-of-34 for 223 yards, throwing several times while on the run – he took only one sack. The Buckeyes’ offense didn’t need to do a lot, thanks to a defensive performance unseen around here of late. You may recall the defense of a year ago, the unit that gave up seven touchdown drives of at least 74 yards – in the first two games. They lost that second one 35-28 to Oregon, one of five opponents in 2021 to score more than 30 points against Ohio State.

Day hired Knowles from Oklahoma State, handed him the keys to the defense, and must feel pretty good about the decision.

Notre Dame sophomore quarterback Tyler Buchner, making his first start, threw past pressure on the first snap of the season to Lorenzo Styles Jr., who turned it into a 54-yard gain. That would turn out to represent about one-fifth of the Irish offensive output for the night. Notre Dame finished with 253 total yards, only 72 of them in the second half.

Notre Dame tried to give Buchner room to operate, at times looking like an offense from the before times. For those of you 25 and under, that meeting behind the line of scrimmage is called a “huddle.” There was a time or two that a bigger running back carried the ball; he is called a “fullback.”

Offensive coordinator Tommy Rees didn’t want Notre Dame to get in a full-court basketball game with the more talented Ohio State offense. The strategy worked in the first half. The Irish held the ball for more than 16 minutes and carried a 10-7 lead into halftime. Buchner, who completed his first eight passes, didn’t throw an incompletion until Notre Dame’s 25^th snap of the season. From that point, he was only 2-of-10.

The Buckeyes used double teams to limit Notre Dame All-America tight end Michael Mayer to five catches for 32 yards. None of the young Irish receivers found room to get open. The running game produced 76 yards on 30 carries. Notre Dame barely held the ball 10 minutes in the second half.

“For us to win the way we did, I couldn’t be any prouder,” Day said. “… We have to be able to win that way; we do. We have to find ways to win like that. Notre Dame is built like some of the Big Ten teams we play. We spent a lot of time in the offseason saying we have to be able to win ugly. We have to stop the run on defense.”

Ohio State has a legacy of winning ugly. For more than a quarter-century, Woody Hayes made 3 yards and a cloud of dust his calling card. Hayes would have loved this victory. We don’t know how much it will mean in November, but it feels good on Labor Day weekend.