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.”