This time Northwestern took the sin of starting slowly and raised it to a high art form. That’s not to say that later got any better for the Wildcats, whom Ohio State slapped around every which way in an embarrassing 58-7 game Saturday.
But the start had been the Wildcats’ theme all week, after those uninspired starts they had made in previous weeks against Nevada and Duke. They said they knew that kind of opening would never do against the Buckeyes and promised they’d correct their ways at Ohio Stadium.
But when they trotted out to play this game, all they did was make those earlier beginnings look like world-class sprints.
Even the opening kickoff was a misadventure. It gave the Buckeyes enviable field position, and it only got worse, much worse for the Wildcats.
On the third play from scrimmage, Brian Robiskie ran an old-fashioned hook-and-go, NU safety Reggie McPherson bit on the hook and Buckeyes quarterback Todd Boeckman found his receiver for a 42-yard touchdown.
That drive covered 64 yards in just 70 seconds, and it only got worse, much worse for the Wildcats.
An incompletion, a 3-yard completion, a sack and a shanked 18-yard punt comprised their effort the first time they had the ball, and that set up Ohio State just 36 yards from another score.
Again it took the Buckeyes just three plays to push it in, and again it came on a Boeckman pass to Robiskie, who this time burned cornerback Andre Battle on a simple fly pattern down the left sideline. This drive took all of 52 seconds, and it only got worse, much worse for the Wildcats.
They did manage to gain 4 yards on their next possession, but then Ray Small returned their punt 21 yards and set up the Buckeyes for a tidy little drive. This one, which covered 31 yards, actually took five plays and a lengthy 93 seconds, but it only got worse, much worse for the Wildcats.
They finally did roll to their initial first down of the day, which came with nearly nine minutes gone. But just two plays later, quarterback C.J. Bacher was stripped by blitzing safety Anderson Russell, and defensive end Vernon Gholston ran in the fumble for a touchdown.
Less than 10 minutes were gone and already the Wildcats were down 28 and revisiting the shoddiest images of their school’s football past.
It was not supposed to be this way for this team, which had often talked of itself as growing, maturing and contending for a title. But its performance belied all the claims, as did these stark facts:
In its first three possessions, Ohio State ran 11 plays, gained 131 yards, scored three touchdowns and took just 3:35 to do it. In its first three, Northwestern ran 11 plays, gained 9 yards, gave up a touchdown and took 5:49 to do it.
The Wildcats could not come back from this. That had been possible against Nevada, which they beat, and against Duke, which held on for a win. But Saturday they were clearly overmatched, and the ruthless Buckeyes continued to treat them as little more than their personal pinata.
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This was a slap-down of the rudest kind, a rout in which the Ohio State starters were resting halfway through the third quarter.
This was a beat-down of humiliating proportions, a flashback to those bad old days when a Northwestern first down got a sarcastic ovation in a place still called Dyche Stadium.
“The team we played today knows how to win Big Ten football games. We looked like a football team that does not,” Wildcats coach Pat Fitzgerald acknowledged. “I take that responsibility wholeheartedly on my shoulders. We need to avoid that first-round knockout on the road in a hostile environment, and we didn’t do that.
“We obviously have a long way to go.”
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