COLUMBUS, Ohio - Saturday's 76-5 win over Miami (Ohio) seemed to be business as usual for Ohio State this season. While the regular starters were able to finish things out in the first half and reflect on the bench during the second half, this opened up room for some faces who haven't seen the field much during their time at Ohio State.

Haskell Garrett was one of these players, and in his 18 snaps during Saturday's contest, he had a career day. Garrett notched his first career tackle for loss, 1.5 of them to be in fact, and accounted for four total tackles, a career high that brings his total at Ohio State to 15 tackles in addition to a pass defended last season.

While this may not seem like much compared to the stat sheet busters that Ohio State has had in the past, this was a big game for Garrett with Ohio State's defensive line already banged up. Robert "BB" Landers missing last week's game opened up an opportunity for Garrett to show coaches what he was made of, and while it was against a largely inferior opponent, he still played with a "next man up" attitude that only helps his case for more playing time.

"Um, one thing that we always say is the next man up. So if we have one guy down, or three guys down, everybody will play this same," Garrett said. "We set the bar that high. But when everybody comes back, I expect us to play fast."

The bar that everyone has to meet has seemingly been set by Chase Young, who is on a record-breaking pace in terms of sacks this season. Garrett said that he and Young have been a big part of each other's development since they both came in with the 2017 recruiting class.

While their career paths haven't exactly mirrored each other with Garrett only appearing in nine games in three seasons vs. Young's 26 games, he says he's happy to see Young's growth on and off the field, and that he takes motivation himself from seeing Young's performance.

"It's very, you know, motivating when he's - he's a leader, no matter if you're the same age or not," Garrett said. "He's a leader on and off the field and he motivates us play at his level and play at the level that coach [Larry Johnson] expects us to play at."

Landers is expected to play against Nebraska but we don't know yet how available he'll be for Ohio State, so Saturday presents another opportunity for Garrett to show coaches why they can't keep him off the field.

Not to mention, this is a game that Garrett and the rest of the Buckeyes have been looking forward to for a long time, seven months in fact, so everyone will be playing with a chip on their shoulder.

"They're ready for us," Garrett said. "We've had this one circled since since February. So we're ready to go."

Ohio State had four games on their schedule before this one including Cincinnati and Indiana, but it was a bit of an open secret that this would be the first week that the Buckeyes would get tested this weeked.

With the lack of adversity Ohio State has faced, it's a fair question how they'll respond if Nebraska goes up early or the offense uncharacteristically struggles, but again, this is a situation the Buckeyes have been preparing for over the entire offseason.

"Because we knew that this was gonna be the one," Garrett said. "Everybody's testing us, every week, every day, so we just gotta go out there and make a statement."