Ohio State Rolls to Easy Win Over Maryland on the Back of Jeremiah Smith

Stop me if you have heard this one before: Jeremiah Smith leads the Ohio State Buckeyes to a victory. If that sounds familiar, it's because he has been doing it for the last 2.5 years, and Saturday was no different inside the Horseshoe.

Saturday's homecoming affair for the Ohio State Buckeyes was hardly a contest as the Buckeyes took care of business by a final score of 45-16.

One thing was pretty clear for the Buckeyes. They were trying not to go to Jeremiah Smith every play or even every drive. It was a mixture of everyone on Saturday, which I  commend the Buckeyes for doing.

Having said that, the two most important plays of the game were passes to Jeremiah Smith that went a combined zero yards down the field. 

The first touchdown that Smith grabbed came on a pass that went three yards past the line of scrimmage that was an accurately thrown football on a shallow cross that Smith caught, turned up the field, and outran everyone to the endzone.

The next one was a couple of drives later when Sayin found Smith on a bubble screen three yards behind the line of scrimmage, and Jeremiah hilariously turned the corner and dusted everyone to the endzone. 

The honest assessment elsewhere is that the Buckeyes ' offense was pretty average against a bad Maryland team. The positive is that Jeremiah Smith is always there in case things do end up getting weird in any game, but the rest of the offense isn't good enough.

Julian Sayin was under pressure all day and the other wide receivers combined for just three catches for 68 yards. 46 of those 68 yards came on one catch to Chris Henry Jr. 

The other big play that the Buckeyes had that was great to see was a 68-yard touchdown catch to Nate Roberts up the center of the heart of the field. 

On defense, Ohio State was okay. They gave up just 10 points on the day, and the touchdown drive that they surrendered was on a 11 play 75 yard drive in the first half. They were very good for the most part against the Maryland offense, holding them to under 150 yards of total offense.

There was more good than bad for the Buckeyes, but there is still a lot to work on. The showdown is set, Ohio State heads west to Bloomington for the game of the year against the Indiana Hoosiers next Saturday.