What a Difference a Week Makes

By Adam Kiefaber

For a week up until kickoff, Buckeye fans were biting their nails wondering if they would become the next big-time program to drop a game early in the college football season.

The first half of the Ohio State @ Washington game didn’t ease any tensions that a Buckeye fan might have, as Ohio State went into the locker room trailing the Huskies 7-3 after senior wide receiver Anthony Russo caught a 23-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Jake Locker (redshirt freshman or sophomore, depending on the source).

The score should have been 14-3, when the ball slipped out of quarterback Todd Boeckman’s grasp deep inside his own territory. A Huskie defender picked up the ball and would have had an easy touchdown, but a whistle blew the play dead. The play wasn’t reviewable, since the whistle blew, and the play was ruled an incomplete pass.

The Buckeyes did commit 10 penalties, however it could’ve been worse. There were a few personal foul calls that weren’t called against what looked to be a dirty Buckeye defense. One play, Locker had his head pulled around right in front of a referee. Another play that occurred almost right after was when a Buckeye defender ripped off the helmet of a Washington ball carrier.

So the Buckeyes got some breaks, which is what happens when you are the No.10 team in the country. On Monday, Ohio State moved down to No.8 spot in the AP top-25 poll.

Boeckman looked terrible in the first half and had most of Buckeye Nation yelling at their televisions to get another QB in there. However, early in the third quarter, Boeckman tossed up a perfect touch pass to Brian Robiskie on a 68-yard touchdown, which made the score 10-7 Buckeyes.

From then on, Boeckman played with confidence and it showed. Boeckman finished with 218 yards (14 of 25 passing) and threw for two touchdowns.

The Buckeyes had their best offensive game of the ‘07 season against their toughest opponent, which has to give Buckeye fans some hope of a Big Ten title.

Robiskie finished with four catches for 107 yards and fellow wide receiver Brian Hartline caught six passes for 88 yards and had a receiving touchdown as well.

Chris ‘Beanie’ Wells (right) had a great game. You could finally see that Wells was becoming a more patient runner and still has the power to run over defenders. He finished the game with 24 carries for 135 yards and scored a touchdown.

True freshman Brandon Saine was very impressive, he rushed for 83 yards on nine carries (9.2 yards per carry) and scored a touchdown.

On the defensive side, junior linebacker James Laurinaitis had a great game. He finished with eight tackles, two inceptions and had a sack.

Jim Tressel, showed the most emotion I think I have ever seen from him, when the Buckeyes blocked a Ryan Perkins field goal on Washington’s opening drive of the second half, won his 200th game.

It was that blocked punt that led to the long touchdown pass from Boeckman to Robiske. Then Washington fumbled the kick return and Wells scored on a 14-yard touchdown run, making the score 17-7.

That was pretty much the ball game - those four almost consecutive plays - blocked field goal, long touchdown pass, fumbled kick return and Wells’ TD run.