After what had to be one of the most tumultuous off seasons ever in Scarlet and Gray annals, it was time to play football. The Buckeyes got the Luke Fickell era underway with a blistering of Akron on an absolutely scorching day in Ohio Stadium.
Akron got the ball to get things started, and on second down freshman tailback Jawon Chisolm fired through for 10 and the season’s initial first down. But the “Silver Bullets” got momentum right back on the next snap as Andrew Sweat shot through the middle untouched and buried Chisolm for a loss of 3. A false start compounded the deficit and the Zips ended up punting away. Senior Joe Bauserman got the starting nod under center and moved the sticks on OSU’s second play with a 9-yard strike to Jake Stoneburner. Carlos Hyde knocked off chunks of yardage on the ground before Bauserman came up with the season’s first big play. Rolling to his right, Joe fired a bullet to Verlon Reed for 28 to the Akron 19. Rod Smith came on to spell Hyde and gained four on his first carry, but on second down Bauserman looked to hand off to Hyde going right. Hyde had broken left and his quarterback was in no-man’s land. The senior signal-called coolly juked one defender, made a couple of nice cuts and dove in to the north endzone for the first score of 2011. Granted, it was Akron, but ESPN analyst Chris Spielman couldn’t have summed my thoughts up any better- “Who needs Terrelle Pryor?”
The defense threw up a quick three-and-out, and Bauserman revved the offense up once again. Verlon Reed had another catch to move the chains, and then Rod Smith turned a simple 3rd-and-6 off-tackle run into a 19-yard pickup, showing a good burst behind a Zach Boren block. Smith continued to pound away at the Zip “D”, but on third down from the Akron 7, defensive end John Griggs welcomed Smith to the big time, stripping the football loose. The white shirts swallowed it up and disaster, for the time being, had been averted. Akron stayed conservative and the Buckeyes were able to force another 3-and-out and turn the ball back over to their offensive comrades as the first period expired.
Braxton Miller made his debut much to the delight of the 105,000 that were baking in the late summer sun, and suffice to say it was less than memorable. After a designed QB draw for 2, tight end Reid Fragel dropped a pass and then Miller had to dive on a bad snap from center Michael Brewster. No one really knows what Luke Fickell’s game plan was as far as when the quarterbacks would play, and no one knows how it may have adjusted in the course of the game. But Miller would be on the bench for the remainder of the half, and the ESPN crew talked extensively throughout the quarter about Miller not being up on the sideline with headphones on, being involved in the action. Lord knows Terrelle Pryor wasn’t anything close to a team player, and his sideline demeanor and lack of camaraderie with his teammates there was noticeable. Miller isn’t coming in as ballyhooed as Pryor, but he was highly thought of and folks are going to be seriously scrutinizing whether or not Miller is more of a leader than Pryor ever was.
Ben Buchanan pinned Akron back at its 15 with a 49-yard punt, and Akron continued to be conservative. On third-and-6, Anthony Meriwether came up inches short. Coach Rob Ianello challenged the spot and lost, and ultimately decided to punt. Joe Bauserman would be back under center for OSU, but the officiating crew would be down one as the heat became too much for referee Dennis Lipski and he exited for the day.
Chris Fields latched onto a pair of passes to get the next OSU drive underway, and a Bauserman scramble for 9 put the ball at midfield just shy of a first down. A false start flag became a temporary hiccup as Carlos Hyde barreled ahead for 7 and a first down. An 8-yard Zach Boren reception was sandwiched in more totes for Hyde, but when a 4th-and-1 arose at the Akron 16, Luke Fickell decided to roll the dice with Rod Smith. Atoning for the earlier fumble, Smith pushed ahead for the needed yard. Disaster seemed to rear its ugly head as tackle Andrew Norwell was hit with a rare offensive facemask call, but the Buckeyes continued a pleasant trend of immediately digging out of a hole as Bauserman hooked up with Jake Stoneburner for a 28-yard TD connection. The crowd-pleasing strike made it 14-0, and at that point Bauserman’s stat line was a mere 7-of-8 passing for 97 yards, with a rushing score and the toss to Stoneburner.
Akron tried to get the passing game on track but Clayton Moore kept coming up empty. Ohio State got great field position at their 43, and a screen to Hyde and a Reid Fragel catch quickly moved the pigskin to the Zips’ 32. The drive stalled and Drew Basil was called upon from 45 yards away. The sophomore’s first 2011 effort was hooked left, but an offsides call on Akron gave him a reprieve. So naturally the next kick got pushed right, with Chris Spielman accurately pointing out that when kickers miss a FG and get an immediate shot at another, they usually overcompensate.
Clayton Moore tried once again to move the ball through the air, but Nathan Williams deflected a pass, and then came the play that pretty well turned the game permanently in the Buckeyes’ favor. Dominic Clarke broke up a pass at the west sideline, and Andrew Sweat was on the spot, grabbing the ball out of the air and making sure he had both feet inbounds for the first pick of the young campaign. From the Akron 35, Carlos Hyde got loose for 24 and a first down at the Zips’ 11. Three plays later the offense was still parked at the 11, but Bauserman went back to his secret weapon- tight end Jake Stoneburner. Cornerback Manley Waller overran the short pitch to Jake, who was easily able to dive over for six, fattening the lead to 21-0.
A pair of Jawon Chisolm runs netted only 3 yards, and Coach Fickell called time after each one. Akron certainly appeared to be trying to get out of the half, and Fickell was aggressively trying to conserve time for a final stab at points. But the worm quickly turned as Moore hooked up for a 33-yard gain to Marguelo Suel, who made an impressive snag to prolong the march. C.J. Barnett looked as if he had stripped a Zip receiver on the next play, but it was whistled incomplete. Moore picked up a first down with a pair of runs, and Chisolm got out of bounds with a screen after gaining 11 more to stop the clock. Moore pushed ahead for 3 to set up T.J. Marchese for a 41-yard field goal try, but he pulled a “Basil” and missed as the half ran out.
Corey “Philly” Brown broke out a nasty spin move returning the second half kickoff and was able to spring away for a 44-yard return, once again setting the offense up in easy-to-manage field position. Carlos Hyde, who had racked up 68 first-half rushing yards, continued to pop for big chunks with a 5-yard run to start the drive. Joe Bauserman came right back with a 28-yard peg to a wide-open Verlon Reed. Two more Hyde carries netted nine, and Bauserman moved the chains with a quick-count sneak for 6.
With the football encamped at the Akron 6, Hyde plowed ahead for 4, then was held to no gain. Red-zone inefficiency had been a frequent Tressel-era bugaboo, but Bauserman had the answer- go back to the tight end. Jake Stoneburner came open on a corner route and snared his third TD reception of the day- believed to be a first for an OSU tight end. The lead swelled to 28-0 and the nail had been hammered more forcefully into the coffin.
The teams exchanged punts, and with a third-and-10 from his own 10, Zip QB Clayton Moore scrambled for a big 14-yard pickup to give his team a little breathing room. The Buckeye defense put the clamps right back on. Darryl Baldwin rang up his first career sack, and two plays later Etienne Sabino and J.T. Moore met at the quarterback for another loss. Akron booted it away and Braxton Miller made quick work of the 59-yard “short” field and showed everyone why he was so highly recruited. On first down, Miller rolled left and fired across his body to Devin Smith for 20, a tough throw that had Urban Meyer excited in the TV booth. Miller reversed field on the next snap, seeing nothing to the right but a whole lot of green back left and picked up 12 yards in just the manner the tattooed brat did time after time over the last couple of years. Miller and Rod Smith’s legwork earned a first down at the Akron 14 as the fourth quarter dawned, and with great protection Miller launched a seed over a linebacker’s shoulder to Devin Smith in the endzone. Safety L.T. Smith had tight coverage but probably got singed with the ball steaming that close right past him. The frosh duo celebrated their first-ever pitch-and-catch six-spot and the margin widened to 35-0.
Antoine Russell gave the Zips some hope of putting together a scoring drive, speeding with the ensuing kickoff out to his 47. But the OSU defense wasn’t about to budge, a point that Michael Bennett punctuated with a 7-yard sack of backup QB Patrick Nicely. Zack Campbell pinned the Bucks back to their 8 with a nice punt, but Braxton Miller continued to impress, escaping trouble with a 7-yard, third-down scramble to move the sticks and hooking up again with Devin Smith for 18. Akron tightened up, forcing Miller to throw it away on first down, and then the Zips caught a couple of breaks as Rod Smith twice dropped passes.
Not that the luck carried over to the Akron offense. Nicely tried to fake a wide lead run, but all that did was give Nate Ebner time to fly in and bury Nicely for a 12-yard loss, effectively ending the Zip march. Zack Campbell threw more gas on the fire, spoiling an otherwise solid punting day with a 21-yard shank. The Buckeye offense took command at the Akron 38, and the stage was set for one of the finest individual efforts you’re going to see, Akron or no Akron.
Braxton Miller had plenty of time on first down and fired deep to the northwest corner for Evan Spencer. The true freshman saw the ball headed high and wide over his outside shoulder and made a one-handed, leaping stab. The 33-yard pickup woke up what was left of the sun-baked crowd and had Chris Spielman and Urban Meyer (who was a GA for Earle Bruce during Spielman’s time at T-OSU) bringing up Cris Carter on TV. It took three thrusts from the 5, but Rod Smith followed the fullback duo of Adam Homan and David Durham into the endzone for the final points of the afternoon.
Luke Fickell and Jim Heacock weren’t about to let off Akron’s neck. Freshman Ryan Shazier hid behind Storm Klein as he occupied a blocker, and then stormed around Storm to get the sack on Nicely. Akron coach Rob Ianello wasn’t pleased and made a point of it in the postgame handshake with Luke Fickell, although he wished Luke good luck for the rest of the year in the same breath. Chris Spielman emphatically answered any questions over whether the Bucks should’ve still been blitzing late in a 42-0 game-
“(Luke’s) sending a message to the rest of the world watching this game about what kind of defense they’re going to be”.
They may just end up being pretty darn good.
The Buckeyes will stay in-state Saturday, but the competition is going to ratchet up considerably as MAC favorite Toledo invades the Horseshoe for a high noon tilt on the Big Ten Network. Akron will head home to lock horns with Temple, and after this past weekend the Zips are probably grateful to be kicking off at 6PM.
RANDOM THOUGHTS- Luke Fickell picking up a shutout in his very first game as Ohio State coach was not so much out of the ordinary, historically. Beginning in 1896 with Charles Hickey, six coaches in a row walked off the field with a shutout in their inaugural game. After Howard Jones “blew it” by giving up 5 points to Otterbein in 1910, the next five OSU pigskin bosses enjoyed a goose-egg on their initial opponents’ side of the scoreboard. Since Paul Brown took the reins in 1941, only Carroll Widdoes (1944) and Woody Hayes (1951) have won their very first contest by shutout until last Saturday…The second quarter beat goes on for the Ohio State offense- last year the Bucks’ most prolific scoring quarter was the second stanza, where they tallied 181 points. 14 more went up last Saturday, with a missed field goal factored in as well.
(16)Ohio State 42 Akron 0
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Ohio Stadium
Columbus, OH
Attendance 105,001
September 3, 2011
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By 'Joe-S-U' Hylton
OSU March '90
Buckeye50.com
