There are plenty of perfectly understandable reasons that Ohio State wants to beat Indiana in Bloomington tomorrow. There’s the fact that the Hoosiers handed OSU an incredibly frustrating 13-10 loss in last season’s Big Ten Championship Game, denying the Buckeyes a conference title. There’s the opportunity to end Indiana’s impressive 22-game winning streak, knock off the defending national champions on their home field, and remind everyone that they are still the premier program in college football’s
best conference.
And, of course, there’s the simple fact that Indiana has become really good at football, and beating really good football teams is kind of the whole point of playing at Ohio State.
But while revenge makes for a compelling storyline, Saturday’s showdown represents something considerably more important; this game is the linchpin of the Buckeyes’ entire season. Not because a loss would eliminate them from national championship contention (it wouldn’t), but because the result in Memorial Stadium will fundamentally change the stakes, expectations, and emotional tenor of virtually everything that comes afterward.
At 5-1, Ohio State remains in pretty decent position looking toward the postseason. The loss to Texas was undeniably painful, but the Buckeyes have responded with four consecutive victories and shown legitimate — if incremental — improvement in several important areas. They’ve also demonstrated enough talent, explosiveness, and growth to suggest that they can compete with anybody in the country, especially since there doesn’t appear to be an overwhelmingly dominant team in the sport this season.
However, there’s a significant difference between being 6-1 with a road victory over the defending national champions and being 5-2 with losses in your two biggest games of the season.
In the first scenario, Ohio State would enter its bye week with renewed confidence, a signature victory, and a fairly convincing argument that its early-season problems have been addressed, if not resolved. In the second, the Buckeyes would face six weeks of increasingly intense scrutiny, with absolutely no margin for additional error.
Now, a 10-2 Buckeye team with road losses to Texas and Indiana would still have a pretty darn compelling College Football Playoff résumé, especially because that would mean that the team would finish the regular season with victories over USC, Oregon, Northwestern, Nebraska, and Michigan; and I would imagine that at least a handful of those teams will be ranked by the time they take the field against OSU.
But getting into the playoff and feeling like you’re genuinely capable of winning it are two very different things. And, perhaps more importantly, I can’t imagine the collective mood around the program would be especially pleasant if Ohio State lost its second game before Halloween.
That isn’t because Buckeye fans are wholly unreasonable for expecting their team to win every game — although, admittedly, some of us might occasionally need to recalibrate what constitutes a realistic expectation. It’s because the questions that have followed this team since the second half in Austin would suddenly become much, much louder, especially if the reasons for the second loss are at all similar to the first.
I pray to Woody above that on Sunday, we aren’t asking, “Why is the offensive line still struggling in pass protection? Why can’t the running game pick up consistent yardage? Why can’t the offense convert in short-yardage situations? Where is the pass rush? And why do special teams continue to inspire something considerably closer to rage than confidence?”
Those concerns haven’t disappeared simply because the Buckeyes have won four straight games, and they won’t if the win streak gets to five, but beating a team as all-around talented as Indiana would go a long way toward proving that the improvements we’ve seen over the past month are real, that the remaining issues are fixable, and that this team and coaching staff are capable of rising to the occasion against elite competition.
That’s why I think the stakes Saturday go well beyond revenge. This is an opportunity for the Buckeyes, individually and collectively, to prove that the work they’ve put in since Texas has actually moved them closer to becoming the team they want to be.
Day has understandably tried to discourage the revenge narrative, acknowledging what happened in Indianapolis last December without using it as the sole source of motivation.
“We can learn from the past,” Day said Tuesday, before emphasizing that “the focus has to be on right now.”
To me, that’s exactly the proper approach, because while Ohio State can’t change what happened against Indiana last year, it can prove just how much has changed since then.
For Julian Sayin, that means proving that the quarterback who struggled against Indiana’s pressure in the Big Ten title game has developed into someone capable of staying calm against elite, disruptive defenses. He doesn’t need to put together a Heisman highlight reel on every possession, especially with Jeremiah Smith available to provide plenty of those moments himself. He needs to recognize pressure, protect the football, use his legs when necessary, and deliver when the situation demands it.
Of course, that becomes considerably easier if the offensive line can hold up against an Indiana defense that sacked him five times last time they met. With Austin Siereveld unavailable, the Buckeyes will once again have to shuffle personnel, but Phillip Daniels’ return should help. As Day said Tuesday, “Everything’s going to start up front in this game,” I just hope it doesn’t end there too.
But that applies to the running game as well. With Ja’Kobi Jackson ruled out, Bo Jackson has an opportunity to show that he can be the dependable, every-down back Ohio State needs at the moment. As I’ve written this week, this isn’t necessarily about breaking off multiple 60-yard touchdown runs (although, Bo, if you want to go ahead and do that, I certainly wouldn’t complain). It’s about consistently moving the chains and preventing Indiana from pinning its ears back and attacking Sayin mercilessly. And, not for nothing, I’d love to finally get Legend Bey back into the running back rotation as well.
On the other side of the ball, Matt Patricia’s increasingly cohesive defense has an opportunity to demonstrate that its improvement is more than a product of the competition. I’ve liked what I’ve seen from Eddrick Houston and Qua Russaw in recent weeks, but now it’s time for the pass rush to take the next step, disrupt Indiana’s offensive rhythm, and make life uncomfortable for the Hoosiers.
And then there’s special teams. Oh lord, then there’s special teams. Day has already made it clear that he isn’t satisfied with the unit’s development, and Saturday would be a particularly unfortunate time for another coverage breakdown, missed field goal, 35-yard punt, or any other entirely preventable mistake. In a game between teams this talented, those supposedly little details can become very big problems.
What ties all of these challenges together is that Ohio State doesn’t need perfection from any individual player or unit; it needs proof of progress. With injuries forcing younger and less experienced players into bigger roles, Saturday is an opportunity to demonstrate that the Buckeyes have enough depth, development, and adaptability to overcome whatever adversity inevitably comes this season.
And, for whatever it’s worth, I genuinely believe they do. This team has enough high-end talent, emerging difference-makers, and schematic flexibility to beat Indiana (who has turned over just as much talent from last year’s team as the Buckeyes have) even if a few things don’t go according to plan. But OSU’s complementary players need to complement, the developing players need to develop, and the coaches need to put everyone in a position to succeed.
A win wouldn’t guarantee an undefeated conference finish, a Big Ten championship, or a deep playoff run. There would still be difficult games ahead, and plenty of improvements left to make. But instead of spending the final five games of the regular season trying to prove that they belong among the nation’s elite, the Buckeyes could spend them building on the knowledge that they already do. They wouldn’t have all the answers, but they would have answered perhaps the most important question of all: Is this team actually getting better?
Revenge would be nice, but progress would be better. The real prize Saturday isn’t getting even with Indiana for what happened last year; it’s giving Ohio State the freedom to spend the rest of this season looking forward to what it wants to accomplish, instead of constantly looking back at what it failed to do.
