Throughout the year, we will be asking and answering questions about various Ohio State teams, the players, and anything else on our collective minds of varying degrees of importance. If you have a question that you would like to ask, you can tweet us @LandGrant33, or if you need more than 280 characters, send an email HERE.
The Buckeyes are set for their second top-15 road battle of the season as they head to Iowa City to take on the No. 14 Iowa Hawkeyes this afternoon. The game will be the Buckeyes’
fifth of the campaign, meaning that the regular season is now officially one-third over. So, to get a feel for where Buckeye Nation is with four games of data to reflect on, this week we asked The Best Damn Fans in the Land a couple of questions in our weekly fan survey.
The first question was about what their expectations are for the team having watched the first four games of the season. The second was about who would win — and by how much — in today’s game. Check out the full results below, and if you want to explain your rationale or add another option, head down to the comments and break it down.
And if you are itching to get some action, you should head to FanDuel Sportsbook and start making some college football picks, especially since they are the sponsor for today’s article.
Question 1: Through one-third of the season, what are your expectations for this Ohio State team?
What this question boils down to for me is what you think Ohio State is going to do against Iowa, Indiana, USC, Oregon, and Michigan. If you think they run the table, then you obviously are likely going to consider them a national title favorite (which both Vegas and I do).
If you think they drop one, or maybe even two, of those games, I think you can still reasonably expect them to make the College Football Playoff. But if you think they lose three or more, then there is no real shot at a meaningful postseason.
As Jami and I both wrote about (in differing ways) yesterday, this team doesn’t look exactly like the ones from the previous two seasons, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t still very good and capable of reaching their goals.
Question 2: What will be the margin of victory in Ohio State vs. Iowa?
In our Iowa game predictions article (which will be published at 11 a.m. ET), I took the Buckeyes to win, 31-13. So, that would put me with the 36% of our respondents who picked OSU to win by 11 to 20 points. The Buckeyes are 14.5-point favorites heading into their first Big Ten road game of the season when they travel to Iowa City to take on the Hawkeyes on Saturday. The gold standard of college football analytics, SP+, projects OSU to win the game 30-19, which is under the bookmakers’ line.
Historically, this has been a series controlled by the Buckeyes. Ohio State leads the all-time series 48-15-3 and has won the last two meetings. However, this will be OSU’s first trip to Kinnick since 2017, and I assume I don’t need to remind anyone what happened that afternoon… so I will not be elaborating any further.
Throughout the year, we ask questions of the most plugged-in Ohio State fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys. Visit FanDuel Sportsbook for all of your college football betting needs.
