No. 1 Ohio State Takes on Northern Illinois in Week 3 – Ohio State Buckeyes
9/14/2015 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 14, 2015
Northern Illinois at #1 Ohio State
Saturday, Sept. 19, 2015, 3:30 p.m. ET
Ohio Stadium (104,955), Columbus, Oh.
TV: ABC/ESPN2 (reverse mirror)
Mike Patrick (Play-by-Play)
Ed Cunningham (Analyst)
Dr. Jerry Punch (Sideline)
Radio: WBNS FM (97.1 The Fan) The Urban Meyer pregame show airs 30 minutes prior to kickoff. Paul Keels will call the action with former Buckeye Jim Lachey and Marty Bannister on the sidelines. The game can also be heard nationally on Sirius channel 132 and XM channel 195.
FIRST AND 10
- Saturday will be the second meeting between Ohio State and NIU on the football field.
- Ohio State is 30-1 all-time vs. Mid-American Conference schools. They are hosting a MAC school for the 19th consecutive season
- Ohio State enters the game having won 15 in a row overall, the longest active streak in the nation.
- Ohio State has won 67 of its last 68 regular-season home games against unranked, non-conference opponents.
- Ohio State defeated Hawai’i 38-0 last Saturday, its fifth shutout under Urban Meyer and the fifth in the last 28 games.
- Ezekiel Elliott has a streak of seven games with at least 100 yards rushing.
- Vonn Bell leads the Big Ten with five passes defended.
- Urban Meyer has the highest winning percentage (.847) among active coaches.
- Meyer is 52-5 in his career in games played in August and September.
- Ohio State had its streak of consecutive games with at least one touchdowns pass snapped at 24 last week vs. Hawai’i. The 24 games tied for the longest streak in school history with the 1994-96 Buckeye teams.
SETTING THE STAGE
No. 1 Ohio State (2-0) will host a Mid-American Conference foe for the 19th consecutive year when they welcome Northern Illinois (2-0) to Ohio Stadium this Saturday. Kickoff is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. ET and televised on ABC with an ESPN2 reverse mirror in out-of-market areas. The Buckeyes are coming off a 38-0 win over Hawai’i last week while NIU defeated Murray State, 56-27, at home.
CHAMPIONS OF THE WEEK
Ohio State’s 38-0 shutout over Hawai’i netted eight defensive players team “champion” honors for the week with the other three starters earning honorable mention accolades. Vonn Bell and Darron Lee shared defensive player of the game honors with Eli Apple, Gareon Conley, Tyvis Powell, Raekwon McMillan, Joshua Perry and Tyquan Lewis being named a champion. Ezekiel Elliott was named the offensive player of the game and was joined by Curtis Samuel as a champion. Special team’s player of the game honors went to Terry McLaurin and Gareon Conley. True freshman offensive lineman Kevin Feder was the scout team player of the week.
SILVER BULLETS PITCH SHUTOUT
The 38-0 win over Hawai’i marked the fifth shutout for the Buckeyes in the Meyer era and the fifth in the last 28 games dating to the 76-0 win over Florida A&M in 2013. The Silver Bullets have recorded at least two shutouts in a season in each of the past two years.
The Buckeyes shut out Kent State (66-0) and Wisconsin (59-0) in 2014 and Florida A&M (76-0) and Purdue (56-0) in 2013.
JOHNSTON NO. 2 CAREER PUNTS I-20
With his two punts downed inside the 20 yard line Saturday — one at the 10 and another at the 2 — punter Cameron Johnston has moved into second place on Ohio State’s all-time list with 60 downed punts I-20. The Ohio State record is 78 by A.J. Trapasso from 2005-08.
HALL OF FAME WEEKEND
This weekend, 14 new members will be enshrined in the Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame, with 12 former student-athletes and two coaches among the honorees. The class will be inducted Friday, Sept. 18 at a dinner at The Renaissance Columbus Downtown and introduced to the public at halftime of Saturday’s game.
The 2015 class includes Tim Anderson (football), Justin Cook (men’s soccer), Terence Dials (men’s basketball), Lara Dickenmann (women’s soccer), Natalia Diea (women’s diving), Annabelle Fago (rowing), Joey Galloway (football), Therese Hession (women’s golf coach), J Jaggers (wrestling), Perry Martter (wrestling), Teresa Meyers (pistol), Dan Seimetz (baseball), Jim Tressel (football coach) and Paul Tilley (men’s hockey).
The hall of fame was created in 1977 and has inducted 285 men through 2014. Anderson and Galloway will bring the total football players in the hall to 115. Cook will be the third men’s soccer player inducted and Dials will be the 37th men’s basketball player enshrined. Jaggers and Martter will bring the total wrestlers enshrined to 16, Seimetz is the 21st baseball player headed to the hall of fame and Tilley will be the fifth men’s hockey Buckeye to join the hall, while Tressel will be the 14th coach (seventh football coach) to be inducted.
Women were first inducted into the hall in 1993, with 111 student-athletes, coaches and administrators enshrined through 2014. Diea and Fago give women’s diving & rowing six inductees each, while Meyers will be the fourth member of the pistol team to be enshrined and Dickenmann the third women’s soccer player honored. Hession is the seventh coach of a Buckeye women’s program to earn a spot.
BELL TOPS B1G IN PASSES DEFENDED
Junior safety Vonn Bell is off to a great start in 2015, leading the Big Ten with five PBUs. In Saturday’s win over Hawai’i, Bell recorded three solo tackles, a career-high three PBUs, an INT and a 14-yard fumble return for a TD. Bell, who is on the Thorpe and Nagurski award preseason watch lists, made four tackles and broke up one pass in the season-opening win at Virginia Tech.
