Against Michigan State last week, the Wildcats gave up 276 yards rushing, with unheralded and unimpressive tailback Dawan Moss grinding out 191 of those yards.

That performance didn’t bode well for the Cats’ next opponent, freshman phenom Maurice Clarett’s No. 5 Ohio State team. The second-leading rushing offense in the conference against the worst rushing defense? Pretty scary thought for the Northwestern faithful.

But as the Buckeyes began their first drive of Saturday’s game, you could tell something was different. NU wasn’t giving up the big play. In fact, the defense really wasn’t giving up the small play either.

Ohio State didn’t get a first down until there was 6:14 left in the first quarter, and it didn’t score its first points until 1:45 had elapsed in the second. Clarett was limited to 21 yards on seven carries in the first, as Jason Wright outgained the Heisman hopeful.

The much-maligned defense was, for the first time this season, showing maturity and making the tackles that it needed to make.

The players were excited on the field, pumped about their playmaking against arguably the best team in the Big Ten. With fewer missed tackles and more pressure up the middle, the Cats made life difficult for the Buckeyes, who probably entered the game expecting to steamroll a defense ranked 116th against the run in Division I-A.

While Clarett wasn’t gaining much on the ground — he finished the game with 140 yards on 29 carries — he certainly was having trouble holding onto the ball, fumbling three times in the game.

(The true freshman had tears in his eyes after the second fumble, according to the ESPN2 announcers.)

His rushing numbers, while right around his season average of 143.8 yards per game, came on quiet yards. Clarett never broke one for longer than 20 yards and never looked like a Heisman candidate, even to the point of being a non-factor in the game. And it didn’t appear that the NU defense was overwhelmed or intimidated by him.

NU defensive coordinator Greg Colby’s playcalling was impressively timed, as he often put eight in the box and disrupted the flow of Ohio State’s offense, even earning praise from Buckeyes’ coach Jim Tressel.

“They did a good job running an extra guy in the box,” he said. “And a couple of times the extra guy in the box was the one who hit the ball loose.”

In fact, all of the safeties played well, especially Dominique Price, who was all over Clarett, forcing two of the fumbles and recovering one.

Most of the damage by the Buckeyes’ offense was done in the third quarter, when it gained 108 yards on the ground. By that point, the NU defense may have been getting winded as it spent two-thirds of the third quarter on the field. Despite the large disparity in time of possession after halftime, the Cats allowed just 10 points in the third period, while scoring their lone touchdown of the game.

While the defense was clearly getting it done against Ohio State, the offense was lagging behind, missing golden opportunities in the red zone.

But it wasn’t the players’ fault. Not at all. Despite some overthrown balls in the middle of the field by Brett Basanez and a silly penalty or two, most of the blame for the stalled scoring drives can be directly attributed to the sidelines.

Simply, the red-zone playcalling was atrocious. Instead of a quarterback sneak or rush by powerful tailback Noah Herron — who had just one yard on one carry for the game — NU coach Randy Walker elected to have Basanez attempt a pass to Kunle Patrick in the endzone, which was tipped and fell incomplete. The inability to get a touchdown after a 1st-and-goal at the 4-yard line set up an 18-yard field goal — which went wide right.

While the blame for the playcalling rests squarely on the shoulders of the coaching staff, the players — especially the defense — should be lauded for their performance. They took a game that could have been a blowout and made it more than respectable, giving themselves a good chance for an upset.

With a defense that is improving every week, these Cats could steal a couple of victories as the Big Ten season progresses — just as they nearly did in this one.