Buckeyes' Defense Dominates Maryland, Sets the Tone for Second Half of Season

The Ohio State defense has had a really tough start to the year. The Buckeyes are so used to having a dominant defense, one that ends a game before it even starts. This year's defense is not like the dominant ones in the past. They are good, but they are not perfect, and it has looked that way up to this point.

Big plays against Ball State and Kent State gave an uncomfortable feeling, the Texas meltdown was very weird, and then giving up 200 yards on the ground to Illinois was the cherry on top.

Now, I want to be very clear: this defense is not bad by any means. However, when the chips are down against better teams, the defense needs to be much improved, and over the last two weeks, they have been doing that.

They were really sharp against the Iowa Hawkeyes, where they largely shut down that offense until the very end, when the backup quarterback came in. 

They doubled down on it this week by totally turning the water off on the Maryland Terrapins. 

The scoreboard says that the Buckeyes gave up 16 points, but the game story says otherwise. The Buckeyes' offense gave the Terps 10 points with their pick-six and the strip-sack. 

Other than that, Ohio State surrendered just 146 total yards in the entire game. Of those 146, 75 of them came on their one long touchdown drive at the end of the first half.

It was a very impressive day for the Buckeyes' defense at all levels. Maryland's quarterback Malik Washington presented a unique challenge, as he had some dual-threat ability in his game that the Buckeyes had to contain. 

They didn't register any sacks on the day, but they did finish with three tackles for loss, led by Qua Russaw, who is finally starting to make an impact. 

In the secondary, Earl Little Jr. and Jermaine Matthews each notched a pass breakup, but for the most part, the Buckeyes just made it really hard on the Terps to move the ball consistently.

The Buckeyes needed a performance like this just to start turning their mindset around as a group. No one will mistake this group for the defense from 2025 or 2024 defense but they are forming their personality as a group.

This is very much a "bend-don't-break" defense. They are going to give up yards; they will surrender completions, but they are going to shut opponents down from scoring. They won't win games because of this defense, but they can win with this defense. 

It was a positive day for the Buckeyes defense as they continue to improve week after week.