COLUMBUS, Ohio — While doom and gloom felt omnipresent following Ohio State's Sept. 6 loss to Virginia Tech, Urban Meyer cautioned that everything the 2014 Buckeyes were playing for was still on the table.
Three weeks later, they proved it.
Because that Ohio State team that suffered a 35-21 defeat at the hands of the Hokies during its own home opener wasn't the same squad that ran Cincinnati out of Ohio Stadium Saturday night. In what at one point threatened to be a track meet that the Buckeyes once appeared ill-prepared to take part in, OSU scored 50 points, accumulated 45 first downs and tallied 710 yards—at one point eclipsing the school record (718 yards) before losing.
Even with a redshirt freshman at quarterback making the fourth start of his college career, these Buckeyes looked like the playoff contender they were supposed to be when they entered the season ranked as the No. 5 team in the AP Top 25. And with so much of the 2014 season left, who's to say that Ohio State still doesn't have a chance to land one of the four coveted spots in the first-ever College Football Playoff?
"I still felt like all the goals were still going to be there after Virginia Tech," said senior defensive tackle Michael Bennett. "We knew it was going to be a learning process with this team. We had to prove it to ourselves before we could prove it to anybody else."
On Saturday, the Buckeyes appeared to do just that—and then some—clicking on all cylinders offensively, but still leaving questions to be answered on the other side of the ball.
With the ball in its hands, Ohio State was nearly unstoppable, as running back Ezekiel Elliott racked up 233 yards of total offense (182 rushing, 51 receiving) and quarterback J.T. Barrett (330 yards, four touchdowns) put together his second stellar showing.
Following early=season struggles against Navy and the Hokies, the Buckeyes have finally found the success that they've become accustomed to under Meyer, much of which can be traced to the growth of their redshirt freshman signal-caller.
"I'm just progressing, game-by-game," Barrett said. "A lot of it has just been being comfortable in the pocket."
Barrett certainly seemed that way Saturday, playing predominantly behind an offensive that finally found its footing with the insertion of Chase Farris at right guard. Both Barrett and Meyer were effusive in their praise of the unit, which struggled mightily in the first two games of the season as it replaced four multi-year starters from a season ago.
"We're an offensive line-driven team," Meyer noted. "And they won the game for us. And they controlled that line of scrimmage. They protected our quarterback."
But while the Ohio State offense celebrated a rejuvenation of sorts on Saturday, the defense wasn't as fortunate.
Familiar failings reared their ugly heads in the Buckeyes' back end, with Bearcats quarterback Gunner Kiel throwing for 352 yards and four touchdowns, including scoring throws of 60, 83 and 78 yards. After ranking 118th in the country out of 125 teams in pass defense a season ago, the Ohio State secondary was supposed to be much improved under new defensive coordinator Chris Ash, but it certainly didn't seem to be Saturday night.
"Defensively, we're back to the drawing board," Meyer said. "A couple corners got beat and we gave up big plays. You can say, 'Other than that,' but that's—we've got to get that fixed. You can't play championship football until that gets fixed."
The good news for the Buckeyes is that while their secondary struggled, they managed to survive against the best passing attack that they'll likely see all season. Ohio State now enters Big Ten play with a more than manageable four-game stretch against Maryland, Rutgers, Penn State and Illinois, which should help prepare it for its Nov. 8 matchup with Michigan State.
With the Spartans similarly bouncing back after their Sept. 6 loss to Oregon, the road to Indianapolis once again appears to travel through East Lansing, where the Buckeyes could find themselves in a de facto Big Ten East Championship Game. And if both teams are strong enough—perhaps undefeated between now and then—it's not unrealistic to think that a one-loss Big Ten champion could find itself in January's four-team playoff.
At least that's what Ohio State is hoping.
"We gotta go the rest of the year," said senior tight end Jeff Heuerman. "They say November's for contenders. October, November, Big Ten season—that's where it really starts."
Of course as the Buckeyes learned last year when Michigan State dashed its national title hopes in the conference title game, none of that will matter if Ohio State doesn't shore up a pass defense that has proven to be its Achilles' heel in two-plus seasons under Meyer. And the third-year Buckeyes head coach is well aware of that, which is why despite all of the momentum that his team is suddenly enjoying, he's not ready to crown them.
"Not ready to say that yet," Meyer answered when asked if Ohio State is currently a Big Ten championship-caliber team. "You don't give up 300 yards passing and be able to look you in the eye say that's a championship-level football team out there."
Not yet, at least. But the Buckeyes' championship prospects certainly seem a lot brighter now than they did just three weeks ago.
Ben Axelrod is Bleacher Report's Ohio State Lead Writer. You can follow him on Twitter @BenAxelrod. Unless noted otherwise, all quotes obtained firsthand. All recruiting information courtesy of 247Sports.
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