COLUMBUS, Ohio – Randy Walker spent the five days leading into Ohio State preaching that Ohio Stadium, the battle cry of the scarlet and gray and the 30-year losing streak didn’t mean a thing so long as the field was 120 yards long by 53 yards wide.
No surprise: The dimensions at Ohio Stadium were strikingly similar to those at Ryan Field.
But in the end, Walker’s then-No. 14 Wildcats (3-1, 1-1 Big Ten) crumbled at the feet of the Buckeyes monolith, throwing away what many considered NU’s best shot at toppling Ohio State (3-1, 2-0) since Walker was a wide-eyed teen-age Ohioan.
“That wasn’t Northwestern football as I know it,” Walker said after the 38-20 loss in front of an Ohio Stadium-record 104,042 fans and a national-television audience. “I know we’re a better football team than we displayed tonight.”
Linebacker Billy Silva didn’t share Walker’s zen-like reflection that the team must recognize its talents in defeat and persevere by continuing to care for each other.
“We played like trash,” said Silva, who looked as if he despised the very scarlet chair he was slouching on. “Some people say that wasn’t us, that wasn’t Northwestern.
“That was us.”
The opening possession of the game set the tone. On the second play from scrimmage, Ohio State running back Jonathan Wells carried the ball 71 yards down the left side of the field, breaking the plain just ahead of NU linebacker Pat Durr, who made a last lunge for his ankles.
NU tied the game on its next possession with an 8-yard run by Damien Anderson. But that was the only contribution the senior star made for the night. As for the Cats’ offense, they couldn’t muster another scoring drive until the fourth quarter, when the game was well out of reach.
The Cats looked as if they were about to settle into true form at the end of the first quarter, when cornerback Chasda Martin intercepted a Steve Bellisari pass and returned it 17 yards to the NU 42-yard line. But on the next play, Anderson turned the ball over for just the second time since 1999, handing the momentum right back to Ohio State.
Will Smith stripped Anderson of the ball, and Buckeyes safety Mike Doss scooped it up and scampered 30 yards into the end zone to make the score 13-7 Ohio State.
“When you turn the ball over, it’s a huge momentum changer,” Anderson said. “It affected the whole ballgame and I take full responsibility for this loss.”
Since playing Duke two weeks ago, Anderson and NU’s running game have struggled. For the second straight week, the senior finished with fewer than 100 yards on the ground.
But Anderson’s low point came when Walker benched him after the fumble for the first eight plays of the Cats’ next possession. The image of Anderson pacing the sideline and watching the action from the outside appeared in stark contrast to the game-faced “Heisman Trophy Candidate” who adorns NU football posters.
Anderson’s replacement, junior Kevin Lawrence, was one of NU’s lone offensive positives, finishing second to the senior with 55 yards on the ground.
“We talk a lot about respecting the football,” Walker said. “If you put it on the ground, the next guy gets a chance, because that is not going to be a part of our offense. You make a drastic statement.”
While Anderson was taking the blame, Walker insisted that he was primarily responsible for the loss. By “thumb-pointing” — as opposed to index-finger pointing — Walker said that he and his coaching staff failed to prepare the team for this game.
NU quarterback Zak Kustok also joined in the postgame confession session.
“We got behind the chains, and that’s on me,” he said. “I’ve got to pull us all together and get us in the right direction, and I don’t think I did a real good job of that.”
NU’s offense sputtered after the first scoring drive and most noticeably failed to collect itself coming out of the halftime break.
The Cats opened the second half by committing a 10-yard facemask penalty. Kustok was sacked for a loss of four yards on the next play. Then on 2nd-and-24, the Cats took another penalty on an illegal forward pass. Pushed back to his own 3-yard line, Kustok ran for nine yards before J.J. Standring took the field to punt.
“All the wrong things happened,” Walker said. “That isn’t the way we need to come out of the blocks.”
Ohio State extended its 21-7 halftime lead with a field goal and another two touchdowns in the third quarter — one on a Wells 6-yard run and the other on a Lydell Ross 9-yard run. Wells’ career-best 179-yard performance carried the previously unranked Buckeyes to a No. 21 ranking in Sunday’s Associated Press poll.
On the short end of an embarrassing 38-7 score heading into the fourth quarter, the Cats pulled together two point-producing drives to make the final score respectable. Kustok scored on a 2-yard keeper and later connected with Jon Schweighardt on a 4-yard pass before yielding the signal-calling duties to backup Tony Stauss for the final five minutes.
Although NU’s offense failed to mount a substantial scoring attack when it would have mattered, Durr felt the defense was at fault for repeatedly folding against a much more physical Ohio State team.
“It’s plain and simple: The Big Ten is black and blue, and we’re black and blue right now,” the linebacker said. “We did not come to play. I don’t think our minds were into it. I don’t know what the deal was, it seemed like we were just kind of glazed, looking around.”
