The famous actor is a Penn State alum and a ringer for head coach James Franklin.
Over the last decade, Ohio State and Penn State have played a lot of tight contests. Saturday was no different, with the Buckeyes earning their eighth straight victory over the Nittany Lions with a 20-13 win. Even though there wasn’t a ton of scoring in the game, there certainly was plenty of drama throughout the contest. How the game played out was along the lines of a Hollywood script since it had a little bit of everything.
Speaking of Hollywood, one of the most recognizable actors these days is Keegan-Michael Key, who Buckeye fans have two reasons to dislike. Not only was Key born in Michigan, but he earned a Masters of Fine Arts degree from Penn State in 1996. Despite his roots in two areas that Ohio State fans loathe, I can admit that Key has had plenty of enjoyable works on screen and television over the years.
With his hefty filmography and massive popularity, Key was an easy choice to be the Penn State representative for this week’s recap of Ohio State’s game. Plus it doesn’t hurt that Key shares a resemblance with Penn State head coach James Franklin. Today I have five works from Key that describe what we saw on Saturday afternoon in State College.
Playing with Fire
The 2019 film, which also starred John Cena, John Leguizamo, and Judy Greer, perfectly describes Ohio State quarterback Will Howard in the first half of Saturday’s contest. We knew the Kansas State transfer was going to be amped up for the game since he is from Pennsylvania and dreamed of playing for the Nittany Lions.
Unfortunately for Howard, the first time he took the field at Beaver Stadium started out as a bit of a nightmare. After Penn State drove down the field and took a 3-0 lead, Howard’s first pass was picked off by Zion Tracy who returned 31 yards for a touchdown, increasing the Penn State lead to 10-0 with just over five minutes left in the first quarter.
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While Howard did settle down a little to find Emeka Egbuka and Brandon Inniss for touchdowns to give the Buckeyes a 14-10 lead, it was obvious he was still working to find some comfort with the majority of the over 111,000 fans in attendance rooting against him, as he had a few inconsistent throws.
Then in the latter half of the second quarter, Howard was on his way to running into the end zone to extend Ohio State’s lead when the football was punched out and went out of bounds in the end zone, giving Penn State the football. Davison Igbinosun made up for the mistake by picking off a Drew Allar pass in the end zone at the end of the first half.
There were some fans calling for Howard to be benched in favor of Julian Sayin. The cries were idiotic since if Howard was benched it would have likely been Devin Brown taking the snaps. In reality, Howard gave Ohio State the best chance to win with his experience. Even though Howard had some ugly moments in the game, he bounced back and showed why he is the right choice to lead this offense right now.
The Star
Key was one of the voices in the animated 2015 film from Sony Pictures. There is no other way to describe Ohio State freshman wide receiver than by calling him a star. There was plenty of hype surrounding Smith even before he arrived on campus, and so far he has exceeded the lofty expectations.
Really the only knock on Smith from Saturday’s game is he didn’t catch a touchdown pass, marking the first time in his college career in which he didn’t find the end zone in a game. Not that Smith didn’t have a golden opportunity when Howard had Smith behind the defense on a long throw. Smith lost the ball in the sun and wasn’t able to haul it in with one hand.
Smith finished the game with four catches for 55 yards. With his yardage output, Smith now holds the record for most receiving yards in school history by a freshman, passing the 648 yards Cris Carter had during the 1984 season. The biggest of his catches on the day came early in the fourth quarter when his 14-yard grab on 3rd & 9 kept the drive, which would eventually result in a field goal, alive.
Reboot
“Reboot” was a television series on Hulu that was canceled after one season. “Reboot” is exactly what the Ohio State offensive line did on Saturday. Coming into the game there was a lot of concern about the group after what they showed against Nebraska last week. After Josh Simmons was lost for the rest of the season after suffering an injury at Oregon, Zen Michalski failed to impress against the Cornhuskers before leaving with an injury of his own.
Early in the week, head coach Ryan Day said if Michalski was healthy he would play on Saturday. Thankfully Michalski wasn’t cleared to play, instead forcing guard Donovan Jackson to slide over to tackle, and Carson Hinzman to start at guard. Hinzman at least had some experience starting after being the center of the Buckeyes last season.
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While there were some rocky moments, the offensive line played well for most of the game. Jackson had a tough task in trying to block future NFL defensive end Abdul Carter. When Jackson was left one-on-one with Carter it wasn’t pretty, but when Jackson had help Ohio State was able to neutralize Carter. Also, the running game was a lot more effective than they were against the Cornhuskers, showing the unit as a whole was working better together.
The performance on Saturday against Penn State does calm some of the concerns Buckeye fans had of the offensive line since with Michalski at tackle it was tough to see the team being a serious title contender.
The Disaster Artist
Would Penn State be any worse off with Key as a head coach than they are with James Franklin? I’m not sure they would. Franklin has put up a lot of wins during his time in State College, but he never can win an important game. With Saturday’s loss, Franklin has only beaten the Buckeyes once, and the Nittany Lions needed to return a blocked field goal to do so.
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Franklin talks big but nothing ever changes. As an Ohio State fan, I hope Franklin coaches the Nittany Lions forever since he always seems to get his team to the brink but turtles when the pressure is ratcheted up. Even in the post-game press conference, Franklin said nobody is taking more accountability for Penn State’s terrible track record in big games than he is. This was not long after getting into a verbal tift with a fan after leaving the field. The fake tough guy act from Franklin doesn’t fool me.
Win It All
If Ohio State had lost on Saturday their national title hopes would have taken a serious hit. Even though losses to two Top 5 teams wouldn’t have been a death sentence, it would have really put their backs against the wall. Now the Buckeyes are in a really good position to head to Indianapolis for a potential rematch with Oregon in the Big Ten Championship Game, with the winner earning a bye in the College Football Playoff.
For all the criticism Ryan Day has received for how he can’t win the important games, his team had a chance to win at Oregon and quieted a raucous crowd in State College on Saturday. When the Buckeyes are playing to their potential, there isn’t a team that can beat them. What they have to do is stop getting in their own head, which you can see them do at times.
There are still a few hurdles in the regular season with home games against Indiana and Michigan. The game against the Hoosiers is the scarier contest right now since Curt Cignetti is undefeated in his first season as head coach in Bloomington, while Michigan has had Day’s number the last three seasons. Easy games against Purdue and Northwestern the next two weeks should allow Ohio State to center themselves ahead of the monster battles they have to close out the regular season. If all goes well with those four games, the rest of the college football world should be on notice.