Regarding this game, I watched Joel Klatt and another podcast and I thought they had some interesting takes.
Klatt started with looking at the game prior to the point when the dam broke. On Ohio State's first nine possessions (not including taking a knee at the end of the first half) the Buckeyes only had one really successful drive. The nine were:
- -13 yards, fumble, TD for Iowa
- 0 yards, INT
- 1 yard, 3-and-out FG due to Iowa INT
- 4 yards 3-and-out FG due to Iowa fumble
- 5 yards, punt
- 17 yards, FG due to Iowa's catastrophic fake punt try
- 22 yards, punt
- 24 yards, FG due to short field because Iowa was forced to punt from their own end zone
- 75 yards, TD
Klatt pointed out that this is exactly what Iowa wants to do defensively. They had scored a TD and only given up one drive in excess of 24 yards. However, this failed miserably for two reasons:
- After 9 tOSU possessions the game should have been almost over. Instead there was still 12 minutes left in the third quarter, and
- Iowa's offense is atrocious. At this point in the game Ohio State *SHOULD* have had between 7 and maybe 17 points. Instead, they had their one 75 yard TD drive and a defensive TD and FOUR FG's on short fields.
After the above nine tOSU possessions Iowa had 10 points from a defensive TD and a very long FG on a 44 yard drive which was their only reasonably successful drive of the whole game.
Even with Iowa only having 10 points, it still *SHOULD* have been a contest because, as I stated above, tOSU should have had somewhere between 7 and say 17 points so it *SHOULD* have been a 1-score game with Iowa either protecting a 3 point lead, tied, or within one score.
Instead, it was already 26-10 because Iowa's comically bad walking embodiment of nepotism offense is so dreadfully awful that they had more or less handed the Buckeyes 19 points.
The other issue is that if Iowa's offense had been able to stay on the field then after Ohio State's 9th possession the game would have been nearly over. If this had been 17-10 tOSU with 5 minutes to go then Iowa would have had a chance. Instead it was 26-10 tOSU with 27 minutes to go and then the dam broke.
Iowa threw a pick on their next possession and Ohio State responded with four straight TD's.
Note for
@Mdot21 :
Ohio State's last TD came on a 3 yard pass with more than half of the 4th quarter remaining. After that tOSU's subs came in. When did Michigan send in the subs exactly?
Klatt's overall take was the tOSU optimistic view. He said that tOSU's offense had an off day and in spite of that the Buckeyes scored the most points Iowa has given up in Kirk Ferentz' tenure.
The other podcast I watched took a more tOSU pessimistic view. They pointed out that tOSU's offense has taken way too long to get going against the only two quality defenses they have played (Iowa, ND).
