Ohio
How Ohio State’s defense made Iowa’s offense one-dimensional to force second half turnover spree
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State football knew what Iowa wanted to do on Saturday.
The Hawkeyes were 10th in the country in rushing yards coming into Saturday’s matchup, led by the second-best runner in the nation in Kaleb Johnson.
Ohio State’s first half issues on offense allowed Iowa to run its offense off the ground game, even though it wasn’t nearly as successful as it had been throughout the season.
But after Ohio State took a 14-0 lead on its way to a 35-7 blowout victory, Iowa couldn’t just run the football anymore. Iowa needed to lean more on the pass despite ranking 125th of 134 FBS teams in passing yards per game (147.5).
When the Hawkeyes had to throw, that’s when the Buckeyes broke things open.
Ohio State forced turnovers on three consecutive possessions, picking off quarterback Cade McNamara once and making him fumble twice.
“We knew they were going to be a good team coming in here,” Ohio State defensive end Jack Sawyer said. “They’re going to run their stuff and they’re a veteran, older group of guys. We love going against teams like that that want to run the ball and challenge our manhood. So we were ready and I thought we did a great job.”
Johnson entered the game ranked second only to Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty in rushing yards (685) and tied for third in rushing touchdowns (nine). He came off a 206-yard performance in Iowa’s previous game, a 31-14 win at Minnesota on Sept. 21.
The Buckeyes, who were third in rushing defense (61.8 yards per game), kept Johnson to 86 yards on 15 carries. 28 of those yards came on a fourth-quarter touchdown when the outcome was decided.
“It was a big challenge to our entire team about physicality and toughness. I thought we answered that,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said.
The Buckeyes had already quieted Johnson in the first half, limiting him to 19 yards on eight carries.
Before he had his ninth carry, Ohio State had a 21-0 lead.
That’s because the Buckeyes scored on the opening drive of the second half when Jeremiah Smith made another one-handed touchdown catch to give his team a 14-0 lead. On the very next play from scrimmage, Sawyer strip-sacked McNamara as he tried to scramble up the field. Cody Simon recovered the fumble, and the Buckeyes scored three plays later on a four-yard TD run by Howard.
“I think that a big thing this offseason is disrupting the football,” Sawyer said. “If you’re the first one to the ball, try to get a punch. Lathan (Ransom is) the master at it. You see him do it almost every game it seems like. So it’s definitely a point of emphasis for us.”
During the following drive, Johnson broke loose for the first time in the game with a 28-yard run to get into Ohio State territory. But three plays later, Simon tipped a McNamara pass and Davison Igbinosun picked it off, returning the ball to the Iowa 40-yard line and setting up another OSU touchdown, which was a 15-yard pass from Howard to Emeka Egbuka.
Defensive tackle Ty Hamilton forced another McNamara fumble on the first play of the fourth quarter. Kenyatta Jackson Jr. recovered it, and Howard and Egbuka connected for a third touchdown, this time from three yards out, seven plays later to make it 35-0. That ended a sequence of three consecutive touchdowns off Iowa turnovers to blow the game open.
“Those were all really big plays in the game. So any time we can do that, it’s a game changer,” Day said. “When you come into games, I think especially for guys like Jack and JT (Tuimoloau), there’s this,’ Well, how many sacks are you gonna get?’ Well, if they’re running the ball every play, it’s hard to get sacks. So what do you do? You stop the run.
“We wish we had done that a little bit sooner, forced them to throw the ball, and then here come the sacks because now there’s opportunity. I think they did that and saw some big plays happen.”
In addition to getting four sacks, Ohio State finished with nine tackles for loss. Two of those were against Johnson, both in the third quarter.
“I think we showed some toughness today. I think guys are physical up front, on both sides of the ball, and obviously their offense had like 200 and some rushing yards,” said Ohio State linebacker Sonny Styles, who led the team in tackles with seven, two of which were for loss. “Like I said, you got to keep getting better every week.”
Iowa finished the game with 116 yards rushing as a team on 27 carries. By comparison, Johnson’s quietest game of the young season coming in was in Iowa’s opener vs. Illinois State when he ran just 11 times for 119 yards and two TDs.
68 of the 116 yards rushing for Iowa came on its only touchdown drive, which was in the fourth quarter facing a 35-0 deficit. Backup quarterback Brendan Sullivan had a 30-yard run, and Johnson ended the drive with a 28-yard TD run.
The Buckeyes had several backups in the game at that point, and it was the only blemish on an otherwise strong afternoon. But as Styles discussed after the game, the Buckeyes defense wanted more.
“I think for the defense, our mindset, we wanted to shut them out,” he said. “We feel like we’re fully capable of doing that, and I think we gave up a cheap one late. So we’re a little frustrated about that. A few big plays that we kind of allowed, things like that, like I said. So there’s always things to correct.”
Out of prison, Indiana’s caviar king back on Ohio River to find fishing holes taken
David Cox, of English, Indiana, says once he began setting his nets again after a two-year prison sentence and a three-year ban on commercial fishing, all of his once-secret spots were taken.
Can you eat fish from the Ohio River?
In 1975, future presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, then governor of Massachusetts, bet 20 pounds of New England cod that the Red Sox would defeat the Reds in the World Series. If things went south for Boston, Ohio governor James Rhodes promised to send Dukakis 10 pounds of Lake Erie perch and 10 pounds of Ohio River catfish. The Reds ended up winning and the cod was sent to the Convalescent Home for Children, in Cincinnati.
At the time, people were still eating catfish from the Ohio without too much concern. The fish were also served at several restaurants along the river.
There were warnings in 1977
But two years later, in 1977, The Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission released the results of a study of contaminants found in the tissues of Ohio River fish. They warned anglers in cities such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, Wheeling and Gallipolis that man-made chemicals known as PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, had been discovered in the river fish. Later, high concentrations of mercury were discovered in the fish, too.
Thanks to the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the environmental regulations that followed, the river is now cleaner than it was in the seventies. And it’s still teeming with a variety of fish, including catfish, striped bass, drum and black bass, among other species.
But even though PCBs were banned by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1979, they are still found in fish, since they remain in the sediment in the bottom of the river. “Organisms live in the sediment and fish feed on them,” Rich Cogen, the executive director of the Ohio River Foundation told The Enquirer. Mercury is also a big problem, according to Cogen.
So the question is: Can you eat fish caught in the Ohio River?
The short answer is yes. But it depends on what species you are eating and where along the river you caught it.
There are also very strict limitations on how frequently you should eat them, according to the web site for the Ohio Sport Fish Consumption Advisory, part of the Ohio Department of Health.
In areas of the river between the Belleville Lock, located 204 miles downstream from the river’s origins in Pittsburgh, to the Indiana border, the advisory agency currently recommends consuming Ohio River fish no more than once a month max. That area includes Adams, Brown, Clermont, Gallia, Hamilton, Lawrence, Meigs and Scioto counties.
Here’s where to check
Recommendations change throughout the year, but you can keep up by visiting the Ohio Department of Health’s Sport Fish Consumption Advisory page, which provides updated information on when certain fish, usually bottom feeders such as carp, are deemed too dangerous to eat at all.
Here’s who should take a pass on Ohio River fish
The agency also warns that people who are more likely to have health effects from eating contaminated fish, includingchildren younger than 15 years old, pregnant women and women who are planning to become pregnant to avoid Ohio River fish altogether.
Just because you have to limit the amount of fish you eat, doesn’t mean the river is a bad place for fishing, as long as you limit your intake or do catch-and-release fishing. Just make sure you have a proper fishing license before casting your line.
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It isn’t over until it’s over. That’s the case for both the UCLA Bruins football program recruiting and for quarterback Brady Edmunds. Edmunds is currently committed to head to Ohio State but he took a visit from UCLA offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy earlier this week.
Kennedy met Edmunds on Thursday despite the fact that the quarterback has been committed to the Buckeyes since December of 2024 but could the UCLA Bruins be making a run at flipping the quarterback?
Edmunds has only had an official visit with Ohio State but could UCLA heave a heat check on the 6’5” quarterback? New UCLA head coach Bob Chesney is off to an unbelievable start to his recruiting with the Bruins and flipping a recruit of Edmunds’ caliber would be his most impressive move yet.
247 Sports has Edmunds as the No. 16 quarterback in the class, which would give UCLA a clear predecessor for Nico Iamaleava whenever the Bruins current starting quarterback decides to head to the professional level.
It’d be a full circle moment for the Bruins, as Edmunds was originally recruited to Ohio State by former UCLA head coach Chip Kelly, who bailed on UCLA to go run the Buckeyes offense. Ohio State is a great spot for a developing quarterback, as the Buckeyes produce tons of NFL talent, especially at the wide receiver position, which would help Edmunds put up some gaudy numbers in Columbus.
Chesney and the Bruins have geography on their side, Edmunds attends Huntington Beach High School in Southern California, which could potentially become a factor if Edmunds views UCLA as a program on the rise that’d be much closer to his friends and family than out in Ohio.
Time will tell if Kennedy’s visit will make a difference but UCLA’s recruiting has made waves in the first offseason under Chesney and the new regime.
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