Here are excerpts from Fisch's opening coments:
It was 7-3 at halftime ... We had one possession in the third quarter, one seven-play drive that ended in a field goal ... It felt like a very fast game, didn't feel like a lot of possessions....
There were a lot of valid reasons for Ohio State to play a low-scoring, grind-it-out game against Washington (see specifically the posts by
@buchtelgrad04 ). A further reason was for the Buckeyes to impose their will on the Huskies. Washington wanted a fast-paced game with many scoring opportunities, not a "very fast game" with few possessions. Washington's only real hope was to win a shoot out, and having "one seven-play drive that ended in a field goal" in the third quarter was definitely not in their recipe for success. For the entire second half, Washington ran only 23 plays for 89 yards (3.9 average) and scored just three points. The Buckeyes ran 38 plays for 209 yards (5.5 average, but with a long of just 19 yards, meaning consistent gains with no big plays) and scored 17 points while bleeding the life out of their opponent. Tresselball triumphs again!