Ohio State QB Dwayne Haskins Shares How Offense Regrouped At Penn State
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Sophomore quarterback Dwayne Haskins discusses how the offense overcame its 12-point deficit in the fourth quarter and turned around for a 27-26 victory Saturday against Penn State.
Dwayne Haskins
On pulling off the comeback…
“We just — we had adversity there and we had to keep fighting, keep swinging and it wasn’t pretty pretty much the whole game, but we relied on each other, we had faith in each other and we came out on top.”
On if there were any doubts…
“With me, there’s never no bleak. Every opportunity we get on the field is an opportunity to go win a game. And it was a tough one, but we wanted it tough — it was good.”
On going into the last drive…
“It’s kind of hard to prepare for moments like that. We do a lot with (head strength coach) Mick (Marotti) in conditioning and lifting and we try to simulate those hard moments, but all we just said was, ‘Love each other and whatever happens, happens. Put it all on the line for one another.’ And we did that.”
On what came together late…
“They weren’t going to let us throw the ball downfield, and that was pretty evident the whole game. They just had a lot of pressure and I missed a couple throws and didn’t have some great protection on some plays. But (offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Ryan) Day said a play has to be made in the fourth quarter, and Coach Mick said to us that last drive, ‘Remember last year when we played Penn State at home.’ That is a memory we had going into that last drive.”
On junior wide receiver Binjimen Victor…
“He did a great job. On that play, I looked back and — if we got a certain pressure, which we did get that pressure, we were going to change the play — and I looked back, Coach Day was like, ‘OK, run it.’ I see it coming, I was like, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ It’s time to ball, I’ve seen it coming, I pulled up and I just seen Ben, and I was like, ‘I’ve got to make a play,’ and he made a hell of a play for me.
“I mean, Ben does it all the time in practice. He’s a freaky athlete. Every Sunday we work on two-minute drill, situations like that, and he makes those catches every day. So this was a time for him to do it in the game and he really came up big.”
On how it was feeling out the offense…
“It definitely was difficult because we seen what we were getting and we were trying to get certain looks, trying to get certain plays that would go against the coverage we were seeing and it wasn’t really working. It took us a few drives, a few plays, a few different calls to see what would work and it came together in the fourth quarter.”
On what changed in the second half…
“Kind of what happened against TCU when we played them and we weren’t really moving the ball the way we wanted to, weren’t coming up big on third downs. (Sophomore running back) J.K. (Dobbins) made a great play before halftime, gave us some momentum going into the second half. We got the ball and drove down the field. But just credit to how great our offense is and how much we rely on each other to make plays.”
On Trace McSorley…
“Everything I was expecting. He’s a hell of a player, fierce competitor, makes a lot of plays and he gave us a lot of fits today. But glad we came out with the ‘W.'”
On what went through his mind down two scores late in the fourth quarter…
“Well, when you’re playing a game you want to keep your mind set on that game. The thing for me was just trying to do everything I can to win the game. I wasn’t thinking about next week or whatever the case would be if we were to lose the game, but the biggest focus is trying to score when we can and then trying to come up big when we need to.”
On the whiteout…
“The environment wasn’t really stressful. I probably would just say that we weren’t moving the ball the way we wanted to. That slows things down on offense, but I thought we did a good job recovering when we needed it.”
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