Ohio State waxed the Northwestern Wildcats by a final score of 45-7 in Evanston, IL this afternoon. It was well played and executed game on both sides of the ball.

James led the defense with 11 tackles (2 solo, 9 assists) and 1 INT. Early on in the game it looked like it might be a long day with how NU’s QB Mike Kafka was easily amassing yardage. But credit to Heacock and staff for making the necessary adjustments. Kafka got his yardage for the rest of the game, but what good is that if you can’t score? The OSU defense did their job and all but shut down the Cats.

The offense looked smooth. They used the run to set up the pass and Terrelle Pryor was successful throwing the ball for 3 TDs and no interceptions. Beanie got into the endzone for 2 scores as well. It was nice to see a nice performance out of the offense. It was long overdue!

It seems to me that this team tends to perform better away from the ‘Shoe. Obviously, the USC game is the exception to this observation, but they do seem to ‘click’ on the road. They haven’t lost a road Big Ten game in 3 years. Here’s to hoping that trend continues next week at Illinois!

Here are some additional notes from the official site:

• James Laurinaitis has 16 career games with 10 or more tackles. He has 78 tackles in his last seven games.

• Laurinaitis has career 346 tackles, good for seventh place on all-time list.

• Laurinaitis has 155 tackles in 15 career games against ranked opponents, an average of 10.3 per game.