Joel Klatt very impressed with Ohio State after Week 3

Ohio State looked the most like themselves so far this season over the weekend in their impressive 63-10 win over Western Kentucky.

Some may believe that the Buckeyes taking care of business in dominant fashion versus a Group of 5 opponent should be the expectation, but college football analyst Joel Klatt explained why the win was a big deal and what he saw from Ohio State in Week 3.

“Let me start with Ohio State, and I know what you’re going to say, well it was only Western Kentucky,” Klatt said. “Yes, but Western Kentucky can play offense and this Ohio State defense did a really good job against Western Kentucky.”

The Hilltoppers are known for their effective aerial offensive attack, with quarterback Austin Reed leading the nation last season in passing yards last season and their offense ranking second in the country in passing yards per game.

They averaged 46.5 points per game upon their arrival in Columbus, but with eight minutes left i the second quarter they were held scoreless for the remainder of the contest.

“Now you look up and Ohio State’s defense, they’re one of the better defenses in the country at least statistically. Now we saw that early last year, not this level by the way, they’re playing better than they were at this point last season,” Klatt said. “But what they didn’t do was sustain that through some of their quality opponents later in the year, so that’s still a wait-and-see and you know what, fair enough.”

The Buckeyes offense delivered in the same fashion that their defense did, coming through on by far their best performance of the season as a unit.

“But they figured out a lot of things on the offensive side,” Klatt said. “In fact, just a bit earlier I was buzzing through the film for Ohio State. They were a lot better on offense. It was sluggish against Indiana, it wasn’t great against Youngstown, like I get it. They’re trying to figure out the quarterback position.”

Ohio State’s offense was good enough to propel their team to a 2-0 start, but on Saturday they looked like the kind of offense that has the Big Ten Championship and College Football Playoff aspirations we’ve come to expect.

“They finally just put a flag in the ground and they say Kyle McCord is gonna be our starting quarterback and then they came out and laid 63 [points] on Western Kentucky. Got big plays down the field, got [Marvin] Harrison involved early, [Emeka] Egbuka had a much better game, I thought that the running backs ran a lot better and had cleaner lanes to run though because the offensive line played their most complete game to this point,” Klatt said. “Ohio State looked really good.”

The Buckeyes may have looked really good, but they’ll likely have to look great in their next game, as they face No. 9 Notre Dame in South Bend on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET.

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