First Posted: 10/26/2014
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – Ohio State quarterback J.T. Barrett played the second half of Ohio State’s 31-24 double-overtime win over Penn State on Saturday night with a sprained knee.
But when the Buckeyes needed him most, no one would have guessed that.
After Penn State scored 17 unanswered points in the second half, then went ahead in the first overtime, Barrett scored both of Ohio State’s touchdowns in the second overtime.
The first came on a 5-yard run. The second was on a 4-yard run.
Saturday night’s game was very different from Barrett’s last four games when he completed 72 percent of his passes for 17 touchdowns with only one interception.
This time he completed 12 of 19 for 74 yards for only one touchdown and threw two interceptions. His best work came as a runner – 75 yards on 20 carries and two touchdowns.
The sprained knee happened late in the first half. Barrett downplayed the injury.
“It wasn’t too much. I just tweaked it. I was just trying to keep it loose in the second half but it wasn’t anything crazy,” he said.
Barrett’s two interceptions – one of them a pick-six – came in the second half when OSU watched a 17-0 halftime lead melt away.
Penn State got the game-tying field goal with nine seconds left on the clock.
“He’s a tough guy who just does things right,” OSU coach Urban Meyer said. “He wasn’t really confident in the third quarter but at the end of the game it was just go make a play.”
The other big play in overtime was defensive end Joey Bosa’s sack of Penn State quarterback Christian Hackenberg to end the game.
“It was nice to make a big play at the end,” Bosa said. “But first of all that never should have happened. We made some stupid penalties (on Penn State’s last drive in regulation). I wasn’t very excited to go into overtime. I was dead tired going into it. But you can’t let that get into your head.”
Linebacker Darron Lee said, “It’s just what he (Bosa) does. He makes plays. He makes plays when we need it. He makes plays even when we really don’t need it. That’s just who Joey is. He’s an animal. He makes plays and he’s a good leader too.”
Meyer was glad to get out of Penn State with a win but saw lots of things to work on this week and beyond.
“We’ll take it. It was a great win against a quality opponent in one of the toughest environments you’ll find,” he said.
“I didn’t like the way we went about business in the second half. When you’re not moving people and then they start teeing off on you, that’s kind of what it felt like was happening. We have to evaluate a bunch of stuff we’re doing. They outplayed us up front. We’ve got to get that fixed.”
“Penn State is a rugged defensive unit. If we hadn’t turned the ball over. If, if if. If we had not turned the ball over then we would have seen what would have happened. But that’s part of the game where we didn’t play very well,” he said.
