No one was supposed to be able to do this to the Penn State offense.

Sure, the Nittany Lions weren't going to steamroll teams for 400-plus yards of rushing and 49 points every week like they did against Northwestern, but they were supposed to have too many weapons to be completely stifled.

However, Ohio State was ready for all of the gimmicks, and the Buckeyes knew where to start: by bottling up tailback Larry Johnson and the running game.

"We knew we had to stop Johnson," linebacker Matt Wilhelm said. "He was my main worry after the week he had last week."

Johnson got his share of holes early, going for 35 yards on a draw play that would eventually set up his five-yard touchdown run. In the first half, he rushed for 58 yards on just eight carries.

As a team, the Lions had 87 yards of rushing in the first half on just 12 carries.

The Buckeyes knew they couldn't let that trend continue. Coming into the game, the Lions were 4-0 when Johnson broke the 100-yard mark and 1-2 when he did not.

In the second half, the Buckeyes made sure there wasn't a hole anywhere that Johnson could slide through, loading the box with defenders.

They moved All-American strong safety Mike Doss up, forcing the Lions' offensive line to concern itself with a lot of players.

The most Johnson gained on a run in the second half was five yards. He did that three times, but he was stopped for enough negative yardage to finish with just eight yards on eight carries in the second half.

However, the Buckeyes knew they weren't dealing with a one-sided attack, and they still had to concern themselves with the Lions' air attack.

"We didn't want to give up the deep passes," Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel said. "You look at their other games and that's how they hurt you -- they hit home runs."

Their plan worked. Mills' longest pass of the day was 19 yards. The short ball wasn't working either. Two-way man Chris Gamble shut down the Lions' wide receivers in his first start at cornerback, along with fellow cornerback Dustin Fox. The Lions' wideouts combined for just five receptions and 45 yards. Only one reception and six yards came from go-to guy Bryant Johnson.

Part of that was because of pressure. Mills was only sacked once, on the game's last drive, but was hit a lot. He was pressured into two of his three interceptions, and he attempted to throw what looked like a basketball chest pass to Larry Johnson to avoid a sack and was nearly picked off then.

The Buckeyes were bringing some zone blitzes, but a greater part of the pressure was coming from the Buckeyes' defensive line, so the linebackers were able to cover the running backs and tight ends in the flats and the middle.

That allowed them to suffocate the Lions' screen pass game. Johnson led the Lions with six receptions for 32 yards, but 19 of the yards came on one play early in the third quarter.

Of course, part of the downfall of the Lions' pass game came from the fact that Mills was simply off on Saturday. He just didn't seem to have his usual touch, and made several ill-advised pass including Gamble's interception for a touchdown, an interception by safety Donnie Nickey that was called back because of a penalty, and the chest pass to Johnson.

"It was a combination of [the Buckeyes' game plan and the Lions' mistakes]," Mills said. "We kept shooting ourselves in the foot throughout the entire game. We made too many mistakes mentally, but give Ohio State credit, they had a good game plan. They played a heck of a game defensively."