Minnesota was never going to be a cakewalk; P.J. Fleck has created a program that is at least competitive against the various Big Dogs of the conference, even if they're yet to join them (yet).
What really separated these two teams were the playmakers on offense. Minnesota leaned hard on running back Mohamed Ibrahim before he got hurt, and maybe too hard, because he was what was keeping their hopes alive against an Ohio State team that was always just a couple of inches away from scoring on any given play in the first half. When the Buckeyes started actually doing that in the second, well.