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Yeah, the Ohio State offense scoring TD's on their first four dives did effectively take the rushing option away from the Irish but even when they did try it, after the first drive they had 13 carries for 9 yards.  That is some REALLY good defense. 

Agree on Will Howard.  He's taken some crap but that was a near-perfect game. 

That's especially good defense since the ND offense had to pass and the OSU defense KNEW the ND offense had to pass. There should have been more room for delayed runs/etc as the OSU defense was likely pinning their ears back to rush the passer and back 7 sitting in coverage. 

One caveat--not that it makes a big difference--is that sacks count as rushes in college. I looked it up and it was only 2 sacks for 13 yards, but that changes it from 26 for 53 (2.04 avg) to 24 for 66 (2.75 avg). Which still sucks, hard. But usually when teams are rushing the ball successfully the sack numbers make less of an impact on the total. In this case b/c ND couldn't run the ball the sacks make it look MUCH worse than it would if they'd gone like 25 for 109 (4.36) and the same 2 sacks made it 27 for 96 (3.56 avg).