Ohio State’s 56-0 Piscataway pantsing at Rutgers Saturday night held the interest of hardcore statisticians for less than a half.
Even they were probably guilty of drifting off to other games, other records, something, anything with a more compelling storyline.
Unfortunately, that’s nothing new in this series. Last season Ohio State pounded the Scarlet Knights 58-0 in Columbus. The year before that it was 49-7. In 2014 it was 56-17.
Buckeyes’ coach Urban Meyer did his best to soften the domination, playing three quarterbacks and getting fourth-string tailback Demario McCall 11 carries for 103 yards.
“When you have videotape of a team that had Washington up 10-7 in the fourth quarter, that caught our attention,” Meyer said.
The coach was trying to be gracious. His former defensive coordinator, Chris Ash, is the head man on the other sideline. Still, Ash’s team that pushed the Huskies looked nothing like the one the Buckeyes dominated.
Ohio State tripled Rutgers in yardage, 628 to 209. It was 35-0 at halftime and all that was left was trying to figure out which record QB J.T. Barrett would break next.
The OSU senior eclipsed 10,000 career total yards to move past Art Schlichter and into the top spot in school history. He also took over 10th place on the Big Ten career list for total yards, passing Iowa’s Chuck Long. Barrett’s stat line (364 total yards) gives him 10,350 in his 41-game career.
Next, the fifth-year senior from Texas set the Ohio State career passing yards record at 7,563 yards.
He is also 30-5 as a starter, joining just three other players in school history to start and win 30 games at QB: Schlichter (36-11-1), Cornelius Greene (31-3-1), and Bob Hoying (30-7-1). The Buckeyes (4-1, 2-0 in the conference) could play as many as 10 more games if they reach the national title tilt, giving Barrett ample opportunity to become the winningest QB in school history, too.
“I think it’s a tremendous honor,” Barrett said. “I came to Ohio State, I always wanted to be a quarterback … and win football games and be productive. This is a great honor.”
Barrett was the first-team all-conference QB when the Buckeyes won the national title in 2014, but didn’t get to finish the job due to a broken ankle in the final regular-season win over Michigan. A year ago he led the youngest team in college football to the playoffs.
Barrett is completing 63.3 percent of his passes for 966 yards and 10 TDs to just 1 INT. He’s got a 76.1 QB rating. In turn, the Buckeyes have gained 600 yards in back-to-back weeks.
But Meyer’s team has also fattened up on three straight subpar foes. On Saturday Maryland (3-1) comes to town, representing a step up in competition and a better barometer for progress than the annual Rutgers rout.
