When the Hawkeyes had to throw, the Buckeyes broke things up.

Ohio State forced turnovers on three consecutive possessions, picking off quarterback Cade McNamara once and causing him to fumble twice.

“We knew they were going to be a good team here,” Ohio State defensive end Jack Sawyer said. “They will be running their business and are an experienced, older group of people. We love competing against teams like this that want to pass the ball and challenge our masculinity. So we were ready and I thought we did a great job.”

Johnson entered the game second only to Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty in rushing yards (685) and third in rushing touchdowns (nine). He posted a 206-yard performance in Iowa’s last game, a 31-14 win at Minnesota on Sept. 21.

The Buckeyes, who ranked third in rushing defense (61.8 yards per game), held Johnson to 86 yards on 15 carries. 28 of those yards came on a touchdown in the fourth quarter when the result was determined.

“It was a big challenge for our entire team in terms of physicality and resilience. I thought we answered that,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said.

The Buckeyes had already calmed Johnson down in the first half, limiting him to 19 yards on eight carries.

Before he had his ninth carry, Ohio State had a 21-0 lead.

That’s because the Buckeyes scored on the first drive of the second half when Jeremiah Smith made another one-handed touchdown catch to give his team a 14-0 lead. On the very next play from scrimmage, Sawyer strip-sacked McNamara as he attempted to climb the field. Cody Simon recovered the fumble and the Buckeyes scored three plays later on a four-yard TD run by Howard.

“I think this offseason is a big deal disrupting football,” Sawyer said. “When you get to the ball first, you try to beat it. Lathan (Ransom is) the master of this. You see him doing it almost every game it seems. So it’s definitely a focus for us.”

During the ensuing drive, Johnson broke free for the first time in the game with a 28-yard run that moved into Ohio State territory. But three plays later, Simon tipped in a McNamara pass and Davison Igbinosun caught it, returning the ball to the Iowa 40-yard line and setting up another OSU touchdown, which was a 15-yard pass from Howard to Emeka Egbuka was.

Defensive tackle Ty Hamilton forced another McNamara fumble on the first play of the fourth quarter. Kenyatta Jackson Jr. got the ball back and Howard and Egbuka scored a third touchdown, this time from three yards out, seven plays later making it 35-0. That ended a string of three consecutive touchdowns after Iowa turnovers that opened the game.

“Those were all really big plays in the game. So if we can do that, it will change the game,” Day said. “Coming into games, I think, especially with guys like Jack and JT (Tuimoloau), there’s the question, ‘Well, how many sacks are you going to get?’ Well, if they run the ball on every play, it’s difficult to get sacks. So what do you do? You stop the run.

“We wish we had done that a little earlier, forced them to throw the ball and then the sacks come, because now there’s an opportunity. I think they did that and saw some big games.”

Ohio State not only recorded four sacks, but also had nine tackles for loss. Two of them were against Johnson, both in the third quarter.

“I think we showed some toughness today. I think the guys are physical up front on both sides of the ball, and obviously their offense had about 200 yards and some rushing yards,” said Ohio State linebacker Sonny Styles, who led the team in seven tackles, two of which were for a loss. “Like I said, you have to get better every week.”

Iowa finished the game rushing for 116 yards as a team on 27 carries. By comparison, Johnson’s quietest game of the young season was Iowa’s opener against Illinois State, when he ran just 11 times and rushed for 119 yards and two touchdowns.

68 of Iowa’s 116 yards rushing came on its only touchdown drive, which ended with a 35-0 deficit in the fourth quarter. Backup quarterback Brendan Sullivan had a 30-yard run and Johnson finished the drive with a 28-yard TD run.

The Buckeyes had multiple backups in the game at that point, and that was the only blemish on an otherwise strong afternoon. But as Styles discussed after the game, the Buckeyes defense wanted more.

“I think for defense reasons and our mindset we wanted to exclude them,” he said. “We feel we are fully capable of doing that and I think we passed up a cheap model late on. So we’re a little frustrated about that. A couple of big games that we kind of allowed, things like that, like I said. So there are always things to correct.”