COLUMBUS, Ohio — The legend of the trap game of all trap games permeated the halls of the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.

Ohio State prepared to take on Purdue for the first time since that October night in 2018, the night where Ohio State didn’t look like Ohio State, the night where Ohio State looked beatable.

It was a night Zach Harrison didn’t have many thoughts on. He remembers watching the game on the couch from his friend’s basement; a recruit who didn’t commit until December. It was a night Dawand Jones — an Ohio State commit at the time — heard updates from a high school locker room.

No matter if players were in West Lafayette that October night in 2018 or not, all players on the Ohio State sideline knew what Purdue was capable of, seeing what it did against Michigan State and Iowa.

The Buckeyes were vulnerable, a team that showcased its own share of struggles against Penn State and Nebraska coming into a game against a Boilermaker team that embraced being Cinderella.

But Ohio State didn’t have time for this. It had a conference to win, a Playoff spot to obtain.

And for the first time in weeks, the Buckeyes played like it, beating Purdue, 59-31, Saturday afternoon in Columbus.

The offense was back to its unstoppable rate, scoring touchdowns on each of its first six drives — 42 points on 29 plays. C.J. Stroud looked like the quarterback he was against Rutgers, Maryland and Indiana. The wide receiver room looked like the best room in the country — taking Stroud’s passes in stride for circus touchdowns against what statistically was one of the better pass defenses in the conference. TreVeyon Henderson and Miyan Williams found running lanes and turned on the jets at the second level, keeping Ohio State ahead of schedule like head coach Ryan Day preached all week.

The defense returned to its bend-but-don’t-break approach, allowing Purdue quarterback Aidan O’Connell to pick the middle of the Ohio State secondary apart for 390 passing yards and four touchdowns.

Are the numbers good? No, not at all. But Purdue still couldn’t keep up. And that's where it seems Ohio State wants to be.

That's where Ohio State's success is going to be in this final stretch of games: returning to that place of being respected, being feared as one of if not the best offense in the country and letting everything else fall where it may.

That's what the Buckeyes did in their first matchup against the Boilermakers since that October night in 2018. It came in as a contender. It left as a contender, turning heads as to what could potentially be done in the final two weeks of the regular season.

Read the rest of the takeaways here.