Week 8 recap: What ugly wins by Ohio State, Oklahoma, Washington mean
For at least one Saturday in a given college football season, everything stops making sense. Up becomes down, left becomes right, Virginia’s offense forgets its destitution, and things get weird.
The actual damage was minimal in Week 8 — UVA shocked No. 10 North Carolina, but the only other top-20 teams that lost fell to higher-ranked opponents — but things were definitely weird. Washington, Oklahoma, Florida State and Texas were favored by a combined 83 points; the latter three trailed in the fourth quarter, and the former was tied. All four ended up winning, as did Ohio State over Penn State and Alabama over Tennessee.
It has been the theme of the 2023 season so far: Things feel unstable, chaos lurks on the horizon … and most of the top teams keep winning anyway. Saturday was the weirdest “survive and advance week” of the season, and it was all about winning ugly. So let’s talk about the degrees of ugly.
No. 3 Ohio State 20, No. 7 Penn State 12
We knew heading into Saturday’s Ohio State-Penn State game that the defenses held most of the advantages. PSU entered the game ranked second in defensive SP+, and Ohio State wasn’t far behind in fourth. Throw in a drastically banged up Ohio State skill corps and the fact that this was the first enormous start of Drew Allar’s Penn State career, and low point totals were certainly possible.
For the second time this season, Ohio State won a low-point-total game. The Buckeyes averaged just 4.8 yards per play — it was just the second time in five seasons that they were below 5.0 — but finished seven possessions in PSU territory and paired two touchdowns with two field goals. Marvin Harrison Jr., maybe the single most important player in the country in terms of “when he does well, they do well” impact, caught 11 balls for 162 yards, 80 after catch.
Eleven other Kyle McCord completions averaged just 11.3 yards, and 37 carries by Buckeyes backs gained just 93 yards. But Ohio State won 21 of the game’s 32 third downs (they were 6-for-16, PSU 1-for-16), and that tilted both the field and the game just enough in OSU’s favor.
There are two ways to look at results like this. On one hand, this isn’t the Ohio State we’ve grown accustomed to — one with an otherworldly offense accounting for a hit-or-miss defense — and considering that version of Ohio State has made five CFP appearances, reached the championship game twice (winning once) and nearly beat Georgia last season, a shift from that identity isn’t automatically a good thing.
On the other hand, crafting a defensive identity that pairs occasional Jim Knowles-style aggression with incredible safety play and big-play prevention has worked wonders. Even without injured corner Denzel Burke, OSU held Allar to 18-for-42 passing with one completion of more than 20 yards and four sacks. The big-play issues that destroyed the Buckeyes’ defense against Michigan and Georgia last season have been completely erased, and this might be the most underrated unit in the country. There’s also nothing saying the offense can’t shift into another gear when all the major pieces are healthy moving forward. (Top running back TreVeyon Henderson and No. 2 receiver Emeka Egbuka both missed Saturday’s game, and others have been fighting injury issues.)
Winning ugly is not something Ohio State has been known for of late. As long as the Buckeyes can do fun, pretty things on offense at some point down the line, this could be a very good development.