Buckeyes romp in Miller’s first start

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Even though he’s just a freshman and in his first autumn on a college campus, Braxton Miller played like a grizzled upperclassman.

Miller tossed two touchdown passes to Devin Smith as Ohio State rebounded from a lopsided loss for a 37-17 victory over error-prone Colorado on Saturday, extending the Buffaloes’ school-record road losing skid to 19 in a row.

“I slept pretty good,” Miller said. “I really didn’t have any jitters at all.”

Declared the Buckeyes’ starter on Thursday after Joe Bauserman’s lackluster play failed to energize the offense, Miller’s numbers weren’t sparkling. But his direction of the offense was.

“Braxton did a good job,” said Jordan Hall, who rushed for 84 yards and a TD and also had a 90-yard kickoff return to set up another score for the Buckeyes (3-1). “He was calm. He’s going to be special.”

The Buckeyes made the switch after one of the worst passing days in school history in a 24-6 loss at Miami last week. Bauserman was 2 of 14 for 13 yards and Miller hit on only 2 of 4 — in the final few seconds of a lost cause — for 22 yards with an interception.

Against Colorado, Miller completed only 5 of 13 passes for 83 yards. But he threw scoring strikes covering 32 and 17 yards to Smith and also ran for 83 yards on 17 carries.

“He gave us a lift,” Ohio State interim coach Luke Fickell said. “He gave us some things we needed.”

Drew Basil added 13 points, including hitting all three of his field goal attempts, and Carlos Hyde also ran for a score.

Ahead 20-7 at the half, the Buckeyes only had to drive 50 yards before Miller hit Smith with his second scoring pass. After Colorado countered with a field goal, Hall brought the kickoff back 90 yards before he was brought down from behind at the 5. Hyde then scored on a sweep on the next play to make it 34-10.

Colorado (1-3) has not won a road game since Oct. 27, 2007, at Texas Tech.

“We have a long way to go as a program,” first-year coach Jon Embree said. “We have a long way to go from the standpoint of getting to where we are competing and not hoping to upset an Ohio State.”

Averaging 26 points and almost 394 yards per game, the mistake-prone Buffaloes did amass 314 yards but still were never in the game.

Tyler Hansen, who threw for 474 yards and three touchdowns in an overtime loss at California, had TD passes of 11 yards to Toney Clemons and 14 yards to Tyler McCulloch. Hansen completed 22 of 39 passes for 238 yards with no interceptions.

The Buckeyes, who did not complete a pass to a wide receiver in the Miami loss, broke through early in the second quarter when Miller lobbed a 32-yard scoring pass to Smith, who was running a post pattern and had three steps on the defensive back.