That didn't last for very long... just six days to be exact. Ohio St. lost it's lofty #1 ranking when they were ambushed by the Badgers in Madison by a score of 31-18. By the way they looked on Saturday night, it will be hard to achieve that status again anytime soon.
Before I had a chance to even crack my first Miller Lite, David Gilreath returned the opening kickoff untouched for 97 yards to make the score 7-0. After an uninspiring drive by Pryor and the offense, Wisconsin marched right back down the field on the legs of John Clay and hit paydirt once again pushing the lead to 14-0. Uh-oh. I knew we were in trouble at this point. The defensive line was getting pushed around by the massive front 5 of Wisconsin and the corners were letting flash screens to the outside go for 10 yards or more with alraming regularity. The Badgers weren't done with their potent rushing attack by a long shot.
After another short OSU drive and punt, UW would embark on one of the most demoralizing and impressive drives I have ever seen. Down 14 only seven minutes into the game, the Buckeyes needed a quick stop by the defense. What they got was a drive encompassing 19 plays, 89 yards and more than 10 minutes of game clock. John Clay would cap off the drive with his second touchdown of the game giving Wisconsin a 21 point lead that would never seriously be challenged the rest of the way.
OSU would finally start to move the ball on it's next drive only to suffer another red zone melt down. Pryor maneuvered the offense down to the UW 3 yard line with a first and goal but would fail to move the ball another inch on the following 3 downs. If there were any time to show faith in your offense and go for it on fourth down, I thought this was it. Down 21 on the road the Buckeyes needed a touchdown in the worst way and I thought kicking the field goal didn't make much sense. However, Barclay trotted out on the field (like we all knew he would) and stopped the bleeding momentarily making the score 21-3.
The following drive, Sweat would make one of the few defensive plays of the night when he picked off Tolzien and set up OSU around midfield. After a couple of first downs, Pryor would be sacked on a third and long bringing out Barclay for another field goal attempt. For only the second time this year, he missed and the Buckeyes had nothing to show for the turnover going into halftime.
Ohio St. was outgained by more than 100 yards in the first half but would finally show signs of life early in the third quarter. They put together two long scoring drives both of which were capped off by Herron touchdowns. After the second score, Tressel went for two and got it on a beautiful throw by Pryor to Fragel. It inched the score to 21-18 which is as close as it would get for the rest of the game.
Unfortunately, the defense could not get a stop when they needed it the most. Wisconsin would answer on the following drive with more power running and some great runs by freshman James White. It was White who would score the game-clinching touchdown and put it out of reach. Wisconsin added another fg late in the fourth quarter and the UW defense would pick off a desperation throw by Pryor to ice it.
John Clay finished with 104 yards which was the first 100 yard rusher against a Buckeye defense in 29 games. Larimore put it best when he said "They kept running and running and running and running, and we didn't seem to have an answer for it."
Up next is Purdue. I wouldn't want to be on the Boilermaker offensive line this week... that is for sure.
