COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Urban Meyer said this week, twice, that the Ohio State kickoff situation had been fixed and 15 seconds into the biggest game of the Buckeyes' season, Saquon Barkley hit the end zone.

Wrong.

It wasn't the last time the Buckeyes and their head coach would be wrong Saturday.

They were right when it mattered.

Out-coached much of the game, overseeing a mistake-prone team of talent that looked unprepared and overwhelmed, Meyer in the end saw his Buckeyes saved because players made plays and his team never stopped.

The Buckeyes outgained Penn State 529 yards to 283 and looked overall like a better team for 50 minutes, but a better team that was going to lose. Then Denzel Ward blocked a punt, Johnnie Dixon started catching touchdowns, Sam Hubbard tackled Penn State's two best players on the same run, J.T. Barrett ripped throws with confidence born of necessity and the Buckeyes were back.

Down 11 with 5:42 to play, the Buckeye rallied for a 39-38 win, keeping alive their national title hopes and hanging onto their claim as the best football program in the Big Ten East.

Think of the alternatives, which for so long seemed like a certain reality.

With a loss, the Buckeyes would have been eliminated from the national title race before the start of November, which wasn't even true during the undefeated, bowl-ban season of 2012, when the race for the title in the AP poll stuck around later.

With a loss here to be piled on top of the shutout to Clemson last year and the home loss to Oklahoma in week two, there would have been questions not just about Saturday, but the state of the program.

The OSU defense bottled up the Nittany Lions for much of the game. But the Buckeyes were ruining their chances at victory with mistake after mistake.

The Buckeyes had four false-start penalties, and fifth-senior center Billy Price and fifth-year senior quarterback Barrett looked out of sync more often than you'd expect from two All-Big Ten veterans.

An 18-yard gain to Dixon on a crucial third-quarter drive was wiped out by a hold on right guard Demetrius Knox, the backup playing on an offensive line that has been racked by depth issue for years. It was just a hold, but at a position that Meyer and his staff haven't been able to fix.

Soon, that drive had a first-and-25 and it ended in a punt.

Then came the players.

The bar for Meyer and the Buckeyes is elite, with national title contention the only standard.

That's still the standard.

They are elite, and the comeback was worthy of that.

Denzel Ward's interception on a deep ball in the end zone had been overturned on review and turned into a 37-yard touchdown for Penn State receiver DeAndre Thompkins. But Ward wasn't done.

With the Buckeyes down 35-20, Ward blocked a punt with 11:39 left that offered a glimmer of hope. That set up a 38-yard Dixon touchdown catch two plays later to bring the Buckeyes back within one score.

But Penn State marched for another field goal and an 11-point lead. The key play? A 23-yard run by Trace McSorley on a quarterback draw, the kind of play the Buckeyes have been destroying opponents with for years. And Penn State was doing it to them.

Then Ohio State did what it has done more often than you realize. They don't lose all the big games. Ask Wisconsin last year. Ask Michigan last year.

Now ask Penn State.

Barrett hit Dixon for a 10-yard score with 4:20 left.

Barrett hit Marcus Baugh for a 16-yard score and the lead with 1:48 left.

Maybe the Buckeyes were unprepared. Maybe they were overwhelmed.

That makes this 39-38 victory even more remarkable.

The chase for the national title will continue. The standard remains.