Ohio State’s season to this point has gone about as well as possible.
The Buckeyes have easily navigated through the first 11 games with a perfect 11-0 record, with five wins by at least 30 points and eight
wins by at least 20 points. The only victory by less than three scores was the 14-7 win over Texas in the season opener.
Be that as it may, none of it really matters this week, as the result of The Game will overshadow everything else Ryan Day’s group has accomplished this year. A win over Michigan will reaffirm the defending champs’ status as the top program in the country, while a loss would be a devastating blow on Day’s permanent record.
On paper this Ohio State team is more than well equipped to handle the Wolverines, but the same could have been said last year, and look how that went. While the mental aspect is perhaps the biggest roadblock for the Buckeyes in this one, there are a few tangible unanswered questions as well for the Buckeyes heading into Ann Arbor.
1) Who is the best option at right guard?
This is likely a moot point at this juncture with Josh Padilla having missed the last three games with an injury.
While Tegra Tshabola has undoubtedly struggled this season, it is too late to start messing around with the alignment of the offensive line ahead of the biggest game of the year without having had the chance to try things out in a real game atmosphere these past few weeks.
Still, it’s worth asking if Ohio State is playing with its best possible five up front. Austin Siereveld has been excellent at left tackle this season, and Carson Hinzman and Luke Montgomery, while a bit streaky at times, have been more than dependable on a down-to-down basis on the interior.
The only real question marks are on the right side of the line, where Tshabola and Phillip Daniels — more so Tshabola — have been a weak point.
Daniels has been good but not great this season, although he has been far from a liability at right tackle. Per PFF, the Minnesota transfer has graded out at 68.7 in run blocking and 65.4 in pass blocking, both of which are second-to-last among Ohio State’s five starting linemen.
Tshabola, meanwhile, has been by far the worst of the five, with a 59.0 run blocking grade and a 61.2 pass blocking grade. The senior hasn’t been completely dismal over the course of a full game, but has more than his fair share of complete whiffs seemingly each week, leading to tackles for loss and missed opportunities on offense.
The Buckeyes have played guys in both spots this season that have excelled in limit opportunities.
Ian Moore started the Purdue game at right tackle with Daniels out with an injury, and he finished the game as Ohio State’s second-best graded pass blocker at 83.5. While the sophomore has only played 117 snaps on the season, he is actually the Buckeyes’ highest-rated pass blocker overall at 85.7, per PFF.
Ohio State has rotated a few guys in at right guard, namely Ethan Onianwa and the aforementioned Padilla.
Onianwa has been an abject disaster out of the transfer portal, and is by far the lowest graded offense lineman on the roster at 39.0. Padilla has been great in limited snaps (86 total), and has the second-highest overall offensive grade of all OSU linemen at 82.0, but missing this latest stretch of games prevented the Buckeyes from getting a good look at him.
Maybe Moore should start at right tackle and you can slide Daniels inside. Maybe Padilla is worthy of the starting job at right guard. Both of these options could yield more favorable results, but position coach Tyler Bowen has run out of time to make a change.
You can’t blindly shuffle your offensive line ahead of the Michigan game. Tshabola and Daniels are going to be your starters on the right side in Ann Arbor, but there’s a chance that isn’t the most optimal solution.
2) How healthy are Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate?
This is the big one that both national pundits and Ohio State fans alike will be asking all week, and we likely won’t get any answers until the availability report comes out two hours before kickoff. Even then, both guys will likely be designated as ‘questionable’ and so we really will not actually know if Smith and Tate are playing until the Buckeyes’ offense takes the field.
That offense looks a lot different without either of those two in it.
While Ohio State has managed 41.3 points over the last three games, which is actually greater than their season average of 37.9 points per game, that was against three of the worst defenses on the schedule in Purdue, UCLA and Rutgers. The Buckeyes also had Smith against the Boilermakers and part of the game against the Bruins, while Tate was fully unavailable in all three.
However, this past game against the Scarlet Knights with both guys on the shelf revealed some deficiencies and a lack of depth in what was previously thought to be a deep wide receiver room cultivated by Brian Hartline.
Brandon Inniss, the de facto leader of the room without Smith and Tate, was a five-star prospect in the 2023 class. Mylan Graham was a five-star in the 2024 cycle. Quincy Porter, who was also inactive against Rutgers, was a five-star in 2025. Guys like Phillip Bell and Bryson Rodgers were both highly regarded four-star prospects in their respective classes.
On paper, it seems like a stacked group even without the top superstars, but what we saw this past Saturday told another story.
Against Rutgers, Ohio State wide receivers accounted for four catches for 43 yards, and half of that was two catches for 23 yards by walk-on David Adolph. It was Inniss and Adolph out there as the top two options for most of the afternoon, with Graham and Rodgers not even seeing the field until late in the third quarter.
Max Klare had a big day from the tight end spot, hauling in seven catches for 105 yards and a touchdown, but Sayin’s options were clearly limited.
Inniss and Adolph led the receivers in snap counts with 53 and 48, respectively. Rodgers was next on the list with 23, and Graham only recorded 12 snaps in the blowout. Bell did not see the field, and the freshman has only played 23 snaps total this season, with 12 of those coming against Grambling.
The Buckeyes have repeatedly replaced star pass-catcher with star pass-catcher year after year. Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave gave way to Jaxon Smith-Njigba who passed the torch to Marvin Harrison Jr. and Emeka Egbuka.
Smith and Tate are the next guys up, but then what?
Does Ohio State not trust its current crop of young receivers to eventually take the reins? The recruiting rankings would say that the embarrassment of riches should only continue, but when the chips were down, the Buckeyes instead elected to go with a walk-on over its blue chippers.
If Smith and Tate cannot go against Michigan, the water gets murky. Ohio State could still find a way to win the game without those two, but it gets even more dicey if guys like Inniss, Graham and Rodgers can’t be relied upon to shoulder the load.
3) Can Ryan Day clear one final hurdle?
This is perhaps the most existential question of the weekend.
While Michigan will provide a physical obstacle to Ohio State this weekend as the No. 18 team in the country, the mental barrier for Ryan Day may be even greater.
There is no better proof of that concept than last year’s rendition of The Game.
Ohio State was undoubtedly the better team in that matchup, sitting at 10-1 and ranked No. 2 while the Wolverines were a lowly 6-5 with a 4-4 mark in the Big Ten. The Buckeyes even had the added benefit of playing at home, and yet when all was said and done, it was Michigan walking away with a 13-10 victory.
The reason for the loss was obvious to anyone who watched: an atrocious offensive game plan centered on running the football — largely up the middle. Michigan’s only strength last season was the play of its defensive tackles, and yet the Buckeyes elected to run the ball 26 times right into the teeth of that interior for a grand total of 77 yards.
On top of trying to prove that his team was ‘tough’ and not a ‘finesse’ team like former Michigan offensive coordinator Josh Gattis so famously proclaimed following The Game in 2021, Day has become a bit too obsessed with winning the rushing battle.
The team that has rushed for more yards has won The Game every single time since 2002. That is an undeniable fact, but it seems like it is a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy.
The team that is winning the game can generally stand to run the ball more as they look to bleed out the clock. In games where the rushing totals are close, that can lead to the winning team gaining an advantage on the ground. It does not mean that it is necessary for you to win the run game in order to win on the scoreboard, which felt like Ohio State’s goal in 2024.
In 2018, for example, in a game where Ohio State defeated Michigan 62-39, the Buckeyes were actually trailing in the rushing battle until their final drive to salt away the clock. Mike Weber ripped off runs of 14 and 23 yards on that final possession to give Ohio State a 171-161 edge in rushing, which didn’t actually matter because Dwayne Haskins threw for almost 400 yards and six touchdowns.
Especially if Smith and Tate are ready to go, this year’s Ohio State rushing attack is by far the lesser part of the offense. The Buckeyes need to let Julian Sayin and this passing attack fly against a Michigan passing defense that ranks 52nd nationally, as compared to a rushing defense ranked 11th.
Day’s tenure in Columbus has featured pure dominance over the rest of the Big Ten and a College Football Playoff run for the ages, but Michigan has been a thorn in his side. Clearing this hurdle would not only bolster Ohio State’s stature in the national landscape, but also silence nagging doubts about Day’s ability to win the game that matters most to Buckeye Nation.
