COLUMBUS, Ohio — Peyton Ramsey and the Indiana offense fought to stay in stride with Ohio State, the number three program in the nation, but the Buckeye secondary kept him in check in the 49-26 loss.
“Proud of that but obviously not good enough so we’ll get better,” Indiana head coach Tom Allan said, after the loss.
Allan was happy with his team’s performance on such a big stage. “Every team is a new team. We’ve had some key players out on offense and had other guys stepping up,” Allan stated. “I thought we were able to take advantage of some things and that’s going to help us in the future and grow in confidence to get more guys involved.”
In this Hoosier loss there were: four total sacks, one for Indiana and three from Ohio State. Indiana played 70 snaps for 402 yards compared to Ohio’s 92 for 609. Ramsey completed 26 of 49 passes for 322 yards in the air while Ohio State went 33-44 for 455 yards. Indiana earned 84 rushing yards to Ohio State’s 154.
Ohio State played a sloppy game with nine penalties for 82 yards but its offense led by freshman Dwayne Haskins outplayed the Hoosiers in every level. Indiana struck first with with a 37 yard field goal by Logan Justus in the first series of the afternoon Big 10 match up. Ohio State was not far behind. After losing a fumble to the Hoosiers, Urban Meyer’s team forced Ramsey to turn the ball over on downs and Haskins put the ball in J.K. Dobbins’ grip for a one yard touchdown late in the first quarter.
Indiana failed to capitalize on their following drive and put Hayden Whitehead in to kick the first punt of the game. Haskins retaliated with his first of six touchdowns of the night, a 39 yard TD pass to Johnnie Dixon and the game was 14-3 early in the second quarter. Not wanting to be outdone, Ramsey and the Hoosier offense took 91 seconds to put tight end Peyton Hendershot in the end zone with a 32 yard completion.
Three minutes later, Ramsey found success again. This time with a 19 yard touchdown pass to Nick Westbrook. The 17-14 lead would be IU’s final time on top.
From this point on, Ohio State played like Ohio State does. Indiana trailed 20-28 at halftime after two more scoring passes from Haskins and only a field goal from Justus.
In the first series of the second half, Haskins hit Parris Campbell Jr. for a 72 yard touchdown reception. Trailing 35-20, Indiana attempted to fight back. Ramsey marched his team 58 yards for the final Indiana addition to the scoreboard with a three yard pass to Donovan Hale. Indiana then tried and failed a 2-point conversion to cap their score at 26.
The Buckeyes weren’t appeased with this lead in the fourth quarter so Haskins added two more touchdown passes, a 17 yard pass to Terry McLaurin and a 30 yard toss up to Binjimen Victor.
After their second loss this year, the Hoosiers are now 4-2. “But there’s no shame in our guys and what they were trying to do, and I just feel like, once again, it’s just a matter of being able to continue to be put in those positions, and we are finding ourselves in those spots and we had to fight like crazy to get there.”
Buckeyes game at Ohio Stadium on October 6, 2018. (photo by Andre Hollis / fi360 News)
