Ohio State has played six home games this year. Saturday, they played their seventh.\nIf you closed your eyes and just listened, you wouldn't know where you were. Chants of "O-H-I-O" ran around constantly. Cheers drowned out the sound of the IU band. The Hoosiers were booed coming out of the locker room.\nWhen you opened your eyes, though, no Horseshoe appeared. This was Memorial Stadium. A packed Memorial Stadium. You marveled at the sight, wondering when the last time was that anyone sat in that seat. Then, with any luck, you closed your eyes again because the action on the field was too unbearable to watch.\nA friend of mine who was tailgating told me that when he heard the crowd roar early in the second quarter, he started walking around telling people, "Hey, we tied the game!" Uh, that was actually Ohio State going up 14-0.\nOhio State defensive tackle Will Smith was highly complimentary of his fans.\n"It was a long home game for Indiana. The majority of fans were for Ohio State," Smith said. "We're proud of that."\nDJ Jazzy Jeff was unavailable for comment.\nWith Halloween approaching, it is appropriate that the game played out like a horror movie -- one of those movies where some teenagers are putzing around and they wake up some horrible creature or psycho killer who goes on a rampage. In this case, the creature was the long-dormant Ohio State offense.\nThe Ohio State offense entered the game ranked 114th out of 117 teams in the country offensively, beating out sad-sack teams like Buffalo and SMU (Defense wins championships, remember?). Six hundred and three yards later, the Buckeyes lifted themselves out of those doldrums. It was their most productive offensive showing since 1986.\nThe Buckeyes basically used two plays to move the ball. There was the counter run to the left by Lydell Ross, which was good for the majority of his 167 yards and three touchdowns. Then there was the long pass downfield, which was designed exclusively to pick on freshman cornerback Cedric Henry. People will pick on freshmen, though, and the fact that Henry picked off a Craig Krenzel pass at the goal line and forced wide receiver Santonio Holmes to fumble at the goal line gives indication that as he gets older, people might regret picking on him.\nWhile the Hoosiers were a travesty defensively (though they were able to stop the bleeding a bit by forcing three turnovers inside the red zone), the offense wasn't much better.\nIU was held to fewer than 100 yards throughout most of the game. They managed to get to 131, but only after the second stringers came in for Ohio State.
IU MVP\nHow did the Hoosiers get over the 100-yard mark? Give thanks to quarterback Graeme McFarland, who got his first action of the year while subbing for a shaken-up Matt LoVecchio late in the game. McFarland was perfect, going six for six for 57 yards, with a 17-yard touchdown to Chris Taylor to top it off. As was befitting, the extra point was no good.\nSo is it time for a quarterback controversy? Not quite. But I think it would be remiss if DiNardo were not to at least give McFarland a chance to play against a first team defense at some point so we could see what he can do.
He'll be here all week\nThe highlight of the game actually was DiNardo's press conference. Though he was obviously disappointed, Uncle Gerry showed some wit with his quotes.\nAbout Ohio State's offensive line: "They tower over even their second offensive line. When their second offensive line came in, at least they looked like Homo sapiens."\nAbout how this crowd compared to his days coaching against Tennessee at Vandy: "The colors are more similar. At Vanderbilt we were black and gold and they were orange. It looked a lot worse. We couldn't take a stadium picture."\nWas Ohio State trying to run up the score? "No, it's our job to stop them. I've played against Spurrier, I know what that's like"
