Ohio State-Wisconsin Game Recap: Ohio State Suffers First Loss of Year

From the opening kickoff this one had "upset" written all over it.

Ohio State's special teams have looked suspect all year, and chalk up another bad performance from the unit after Saturday's game. David Gilreath returned the opening kickoff 97 yards, which set the tone for the rest of the game. 

"That was huge," said Wisconsin linebacker Blake Sorensen. "To open up a game with a returned touchdown gave us a lot of confidence."

Wisconsin was able to take a 14-0 lead just five minutes into the first quarter, sending Ohio State into the locker room down 21-3 at halftime.

Ohio State did manage to battle their way back, thanks to some tough running by Boom Herron, who finished the game with 91 yards on 19 carries to go along with two touchdowns.

Ohio State cut the deficit to 21-18 after a successful two-point conversion, but the oft-trusted defense let it down, giving up a long scoring drive led by Scott Tolzien who redeemed himself after his outing last year against Ohio State.

There were not many great individual performances to talk about for the Buckeyes. As stated earlier, Boom Herron played a great game and Dane Sanzenbacher caught everything thrown his way, but outside of those two, no one really stepped up.

Pryor had a rough outing, finishing the game with only 157 yards on 14-of-28 passing with one interception. Pryor was also unsuccessful in the running game, only netting 56 yards on 18 carries, including three sacks.

Defensively, it's hard to pick one guy out that played really well, or one that played really badly. As a unit, the defense got it handed to them.

Cameron Heyward and Nathan Williams were non-existent in the pass rush, giving Tolzien opportunities to find wide-open receivers downfield. No big plays were made in the secondary like in previous games this season, and it seemed like Wisconsin was able to get a man wide open in OSU's pass coverage on big plays.

Brian Rolle summed it up perfectly: "They lined up toe-to-toe and just beat us. It was like, did they really just do what I think they did?"

Yes, they sure did. They made the nation's fourth-ranked defense look more like a unit that has some soul-searching to do after they were exposed time and time again. Ohio State should be able to let the frustration from this loss out on an injury-plagued Purdue team that will be traveling to the Shoe next week.