Ohio State heard the criticism through the first two weeks of the season and took it to heart, detonating on Western Kentucky on Saturday for a 63-10 win to move to 3-0 on this season.
Here are our picks for players deserving of Buckeye Leaves following the win.
Patrick Engels: TreVeyon Henderson continued to show the explosiveness that earned him All-Big Ten honors his freshman season on Saturday, racking up two runs of 15 or more yards along with a pair of scores to lead the Ohio State rushing attack.
Henderson’s 21-yard score in the first quarter was his most impressive, where he bounced to the outside and sped past the Hilltoppers secondary to give the Buckeyes their first score of the night. He also once again proved to be a weapon in the passing game, racking up one catch that went for 27 yards.
His big night was headlined by his 19-yard gain midway through the third quarter, which brought him over the 2,000-yard plateau for his career, a feat that only 27 other Ohio State rushers have achieved. The junior talkback will only add to that mark if he continues to rush with that same speed and aggression.
Braden Moles: Just days after being named Ohio State’s full-time starter for the season, quarterback Kyle McCord backed up the decision with a dominant outing against Western Kentucky.
The signal caller finished 19-of-23 passing for 318 yards and three touchdowns, including a 75-yard strike to Marvin Harrison Jr. and a pair of scores (15 and 14 yards) to Emeka Egbuka. He recovered from an early miss on a third-down throw to Julian Fleming and was nearly perfect through the remainder of the game.
Greg Wilson: Tommy Eichenberg earned a Buckeye Leaf early when he came out of the gates hot and had six tackles on Western Kentucky’s first drive of the game, getting him over the 200-tackle mark for his career at Ohio State. The rest of the game he would go on to make four more but was a problem for the Hilltopper’s offense the entire game, and he was also able to get to the quarterback once as well.
Quarterback Austin Reed has been great so far this season, but against the Buckeyes he couldn’t get anything going because he was being pressured so much, and when he had to check down, Eichenberg was there to make a quick tackle. He was a force to be reckoned with on the defensive end today and was a large part of why Western Kentucky wasn’t able put scores together.
