Ohio State makes it five straight over Wolverines

COLUMBUS - It just felt different after Ohio State dominated Michigan 42-7 for its most lopsided win over its biggest football rival since Lyndon B. Johnson was in the White House.

This time there was not a constant roar from the stands loud enough to create waves in the nearby Olentangy River.

This time, instead of a mass of humanity celebrating on the field after the win, there were a few students who were there presumably because they figured that's what they were supposed to do.

This time, instead of the Buckeyes shouting and high-fiving their way on a rollicking path to their locker room, they calmly sprinted up the exit ramp smiling, but nowhere near giddy.

This is what it looks like when a team favored by three touchdowns over a team with only three wins all season wins by five touchdowns, even in the Ohio State-Michigan game.

No. 10 Ohio State (10-2, 7-1 Big Ten) beat Michigan for the fifth straight time, won a share of its fourth straight Big Ten title and sent Michigan home with a loss for the seventh time in eight seasons in the Jim Tressel era with a dominating performance.

Maybe the Buckeyes' win didn't set off the emotional earthquakes of wins like 2006, when No. 1 Ohio State beat No. 2 Michigan to go to the national championship game, or like the 2002 win, which also got the Buckeyes to the title game.

But the football seismologists still had plenty of game-shaking plays to study.

Tressel said that was the hope he had after studying films of Michigan. Those film study sessions showed the Wolverines were vulnerable to big plays.

"The teams they played did not run four yards, five yards, four yards, five yards. They either ran for a minus one or hit big ones, whether it was a run or a pass," Tressel said.

OSU had more minuses than plusses early, when it gained only eight yards on its first 13 plays. And on one of those, quarterback Terrelle Pryor threw an interception, but Michigan wasn't able to turn it into points.

Predictably, the first big play came from tailback Chris Wells, whose 59-yard touchdown run gave Ohio State a 7-0 lead in the first quarter.

Wells, who finished with 134 yards rushing on 15 carries, scored on a 62-yard run last season against Michigan and went 52 yards for a score against the Wolverines in 2006.

OSU went up 14-0 on a 53-yard scoring throw from Pryor to Brian Hartline early in the second quarter, before Michigan cut the lead to 14-7 at halftime.

Two big plays on Ohio State's first possession of the third quarter turned the game in the Buckeyes' direction to stay.

Wells took a pitchout on the first play and went 42 yards to Michigan's 49-yard line. On the next snap, Dan Herron sprinted 49 yards for a 21-7 lead.

Pryor hit Brian Robiskie with an 8-yard touchdown pass, Herron scored on a 2-yard run, Todd Boeckman connected with Hartline on an 18-yard scoring throw for the 42-7 final.

Pryor was 5 of 13 for 120 yards and two touchdowns as Ohio State rolled up 416 yards of offense.

Michigan (3-9, 2-6 Big Ten) extended its record for most losses in a season in Rich Rodriguez's first campaign in Ann Arbor. No Michigan team had ever lost more than seven games before this season.

The Wolverines, playing without starting quarterback Steven Threet, totaled only 198 yards on offense. Tailback Brandon Minor led the way with 67 yards on 14 carries. Threet's replacement Nick Sheridan was 8 of 24 for 87 yards.

"We did a good job of limiting Brandon Minor, he got one big run and that was a missed tackle. Once we did that, we got them to pass, that's exactly what we wanted them to do," Ohio State safety Kurt Coleman said.

Rodriguez said there is "no panic" at Michigan about the season or about absorbing a 38-point beating in a game usually decided by narrow margins.

"It's disappointing to not be as successful as we would have liked with our record, but there is no panic with it being the first year," he said.