COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2013 Jeremiah Smith had two highlight reel-worthy touchdown catches, Julian Sayin passed for 320 yards and three touchdowns, and top-ranked Ohio State tuned up for next week’s matchup against No. 5 Texas with a 56-3 rout of Ball State on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The Buckeyes (1-0) went three-and-out on their opening drive before finding the end zone on seven of their next nine possessions.<\/p>\n
Smith had eight receptions for 151 yards, all in the first half. He started Ohio State’s scoring with a 48-yard, one-handed, over-the-shoulder grab in the end zone off a play-action pass by Sayin. He extended the Buckeyes’ advantage to 28-3 with 10 seconds left in the first half with a 3-yard catch in the back of the end zone.<\/p>\n
Sayin completed 21 of 25 passes before coming out midway through the third quarter. He also had the first rushing score of his career on a 3-yard run up the middle on fourth-and-goal to make it 21-0 three minutes into the second quarter.<\/p>\n
Bo Jackson (65 yards) and Ja\u2019Kobi Jackson (49 yards) added long rushing TDs in the third quarter. Devin McCuin had six catches for 97 yards and a touchdown.<\/p>\n
Ball State (0-1) got its only points on Brody Boehm’s 54-yard field goal with 1:17 remaining in the second quarter. Keldric Luster was 18 of 33 passing for 89 yards in his first collegiate start.<\/p>\n
The takeaway<\/p>\n
Ball State: The Cardinals, who received $1.9 million to play Ohio State for the first time, fell to 0-2 against No. 1-ranked teams in the AP Top 25<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ohio State: Coach Ryan Day said Tuesday that he wanted a clean performance from the Buckeyes. The offense operated with tempo while the defense held the Cardinals to 165 total yards.<\/p>\n Up next<\/p>\n Ball State: Hosts Stony Brook on Sept. 12.<\/p>\n Ohio State: At No. 5 Texas on Sept. 12.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here<\/a>, visit the Top 25 here<\/a> and see AP\u2019s full college football coverage here<\/a><\/p>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2013 Jeremiah Smith had two highlight reel-worthy touchdown catches, Julian Sayin passed for 320 yards and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[148623,148624,17384,9453,154,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-427451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-brody-boehm","tag-devin-mccuin","tag-jeremiah-smith","tag-julian-sayin","tag-sports","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}