Buckeyes find offensive explosion they were looking for

Nov. 12—COLUMBUS — Ohio State's worries about starting slowly in too many games disappeared in a 38-3 win over Michigan State on Saturday night at Ohio Stadium.

All it took was getting all the starters on the Buckeyes' offense back together again and functioning at a high level and an opponent who is probably one of the two worst teams in the Big Ten.

No. 1 Ohio State (10-0, 7-0 Big Ten) had scored 10 points or fewer in the first half of five of its six Big Ten games before Saturday night.

But it scored touchdowns five of the first six times it had the ball to build a 35-3 lead by halftime against Michigan State (3-7, 1-6 Big Ten).

"It was great to have everybody back. I feel like we're getting all our pieces back. You're starting to see our identity forged a little bit more on offense. I think you're seeing us play with more confidence," OSU coach Ryan Day said.

"It was great to see us get off to a hot start," he said.

Quarterback Kyle McCord was 24 of 31 for a career-best 335 yards and three touchdowns. Two of those touchdown throws went to Marvin Harrison Jr. (7 catches, 149 yards) and the other went to tight end Cade Stover (7 catches, 79 yards).

The Buckeyes had 530 yards of total offense and held MSU to 182 yards.

Harrison became the first Ohio State player ever to have 1,000 yards or more receiving in more than one season. And he might have pushed his Heisman Trophy stock higher with his efforts in this game.

But he said the Heisman "isn't in my head at all." And he said a 19-yard touchdown run on a reverse for OSU's first touchdown was his favorite of his three trips to the end zone in the game.

"We've called that play three times before in my career and I came up short," Harrison said.

Michigan State did not have a sack in the game, something McCord said played a role in the success of Ohio State's passing game.

"I don't think there was a time today that I dropped back and had pressure in my face," he said.

Day said he felt OSU possibly was ready for a big offensive game after watching film of last week's 35-16 win over Rutgers.

"The Rutgers game was kind of clunky. But watching the film it was encouraging, it was coming. I kind of felt something like this was right around the corner, that we were knocking on the door," he said.

OSU scored on its first three possessions and five of the six times it had the ball in the first half.

Harrison began the Buckeyes' scoring when he ended an 8-play, 75-yard drive with his 19-yard touchdown run.

McCord connnected with Harrison on a 26-yard touchdown pass on OSU's second drive and the lead grew to 21-0 on the first play of the second quarter on a 9-yard touchdown pass from McCord to Harrison.

Michigan State got on the scoreboard when Jonathan Kim kicked a 53-yard field goal before OSU got two touchdown in the final 3 1/2 minutes of the first half.

The first of these two scores came on a 9-yard run by Henderson. Then McCord hit Stover with an 18-yard touchdown pass with 15 seconds left in the first half.

Jayden Fielding's 36-yard field goal early in the third quarter was the only scoring by either team in the second half.

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Reach Jim Naveau at 567-242-0414.