TreVeyon Henderson scores the first touchdown of the game on a 3-yard run during Saturday’s game in Ohio Stadium against Western Michigan.
Joshua Keeran | The Gazette
COLUMBUS — Determined to start much faster than a week ago, No. 2 Ohio State landed body blows early and often on Saturday in a 56-0 rout of Western Michigan to remain unbeaten.
Junior running back Quinshon Judkins rushed for 108 yards, his first 100-yard performance as a Buckeye, and along with fellow running back TreVeyon Henderson combined for four rushing touchdowns. As a team, the Buckeyes compiled 273 yards and six touchdowns on the ground in an overwhelming rushing attack for which Western Michigan had no answer.
Senior quarterback Will Howard continued his impressive start to his first and only season in Columbus, completing each of his first 10 pass attempts and throwing for 292 yards and a touchdown in less than three quarters of work.
A week after bursting onto the scene with a six-catch, two-touchdown performance in his debut, freshman phenom Jeremiah Smith had another big game, hauling in five passes for 119 yards, his first 100-yard game of his career. His five catches tied for the team-high with Emeka Egbuka, who also had five catches while wracking up 98 yards.
Ohio State finished with 683 total yards on offense, its highest output since a 763-yard performance against Toledo in 2022.
For as well as Ohio State played offensively, its defense wouldn’t be outdone, pitching its first shutout since a 2019 win over Cincinnati. Western Michigan quarterback Hayden Wolff was sacked three times, and the Broncos failed to surpass 100 yards of total offense in the game.
The performance marked the first time Ohio State has held an opponent under 100 yards since 2017.
Ohio State scored on each of its first three drives to open a 21-0 lead in the first quarter. Henderson’s 3-yard touchdown run got the scoring started on Ohio State’s opening drive, and then Howard and Smith renewed their dynamic connection that was featured so prominently a week ago.
After Western Michigan (0-2) missed a field goal midway through the opening quarter, Smith hauled in a short throw from Howard on the following possession and split two defenders, racing 70 yards to the end zone for his lone score of the game and third touchdown already this season.
Judkins added the first of two rushing touchdowns on a 23-yard dash to push the Buckeye lead to 21-0 with a minute left in the first quarter, blowing the game wide open and officially signaling the rout.
“We wanted to start fast in this game and really build on the energy of the entire stadium, and I felt like we did that,” head coach Ryan Day said following the game. “We continued to play the whole game and wanted to make sure we put on a good show for everybody who came today…”
The show was just getting started for Ohio State, which added to its lead in the second quarter with Judkins’ second touchdown of the half and Howard’s first rushing touchdown at Ohio State to take a 35-0 lead at halftime.
Howard said of his first rushing touchdown, “I always say it’s great to throw a touchdown and it feels awesome, but there’s nothing quite like running a touchdown in and feeling the crowd, celebrating with your teammates in the end zone. There’s no feeling like that, and it was pretty awesome.”
There was no letup in the second half as Henderson and freshman running back James Peoples each found paydirt to continue building Ohio State’s lead to 49-0 as Day and his coaching staff began to substitute liberally over the final quarter.
True freshman quarterback Julian Sayin, seeing the first snaps of his college career, got in on the fun and tossed his first touchdown pass on a 55-yard strike to tight end Bennett Christian to close the book on the scoring.
Following the game, Day said he entered game day feeling confident his team would come out firing given the way they had practiced all week.
“It was a good energy at practice, and when you’re going against each other with good-on-good, and the attention to detail was good. All of it was sharp,” Day said. “Not that the execution was perfect because it wasn’t but there was just an energy about them and we have to keep building on that … I knew going into this game that if we just played like we practiced during the week, it was going to be a good night for us.”
Howard was pleased with Ohio State’s effort but noted it was hardly a perfect effort for an offense he believes has no limit to how good it can become.
“I think we played well tonight but there are still some plays we left out there,” he said. “There’s still some meat we left on the bone. I think that’s the exciting thing about this team, that we have so much talent and so many guys who are doing good things, but we can still grow on it and are never satisfied.”
Ohio State now heads into its first of two bye weeks before preparing for its final non-conference matchup in a Sept. 21 tilt with the Marshall Thundering Herd in Columbus.
Reach Dillon Davis at 740-413-0904. Follow him on X @DillonDavis56.
