Ohio State did not put its best foot forward in the Big Ten Championship Game against Indiana.
The game was there for the taking, but the Buckeyes didn’t take it. Credit to Indiana’s coaching staff to some degree, but there will also have to be improvement on Ohio State’s side after the Hoosiers put on tape some effective schemes and approaches to stopping the Buckeye offense.
Aside from better play calling and adjustments from the coaching staff, the Buckeyes will also need some improvement in key areas
on the field to get past Miami and advance to the semifinals in the College Football Playoff.
What follows are three players who must bounce back from subpar performances against the Hoosiers for Ohio State to be successful.
Julian Sayin
It feels strange to write that Sayin must be better, but the Big Ten Freshman of the Year has set the bar so high in 2025 that struggles have been few and far between.
Entering the Indiana game, there was very little valid criticism of the first-year starting quarterback’s play this season. The only real area he had shown a need for improvement was coming off the deep routes and checking down early.
The season was sprinkled with instances of Sayin having Jeremiah Smith or Carnell Tate breaking open deep, only for Sayin to already be throwing underneath to Brandon Inniss or one of his tight ends. That might be simply a case of him following a conservative coaching approach to limit negative plays, but other than that, Sayin had been aces all year, which is why he was a Heisman Trophy finalist.
Against Indiana, however, Sayin seemed to struggle processing the defense’s changes at the snap. In much the same way Ohio State’s defense has flummoxed opposing offenses by showing one thing and doing another, the Hoosiers also disguised their intentions well. Some of that led to free runners in the pass rush, forcing Sayin to make quicker decisions, and it might have gotten into his head a bit over the course of the game.
Hopefully, the weeks of practice since that game will have allowed Ryan Day’s staff to work with Sayin to speed up his post-snap diagnosis.
Offensive Line
Tegra Tshabola had a nightmarish game against Indiana, and the right side of Ohio State’s line was a bit of a mess. That’s not to say the entire offensive line didn’t have a weak outing against the Hoosiers, because it did, but the right side seemed to get especially abused, even though Pro Football Focus graded out Luke Montgomery a tenth of a point lower than Tshabola and Austin Siereveld slightly lower than Phillip Daniels.
Tshabola won’t play against Miami, and the line played noticeably better after his departure from the Indiana game, indicating he was trying to play through something and it wasn’t working.
Gabe VanSickle and Joshua Padilla will likely both get playing time at right guard against Miami, and they must find chemistry with Daniels or it will be a long night. Miami has excellent pass rushers on the edge, and the right side will usually be tasked with stopping Akheem Mesidor, although Ruben Bain Jr. will switch sides with Mesidor at times. Both ends were beasts against Texas A&M.
Inside, Montgomery, VanSickle/Padilla, and Carson Hinzman must work well to pass off defensive linemen and pick up blitzers, combo block together in the run game, and get to the second level to help Bo Jackson be successful.
Jayden Fielding
I did not come here to bash Ohio State’s kicker, because a dive into his numbers indicate he’s more maligned by the fan base than is warranted.
Much of that comes from missing kicks at critical times — notably the two misses while playing through an injury against Michigan a year ago. Fielding missed one kick against Indiana, and obviously it was a costly one. It won’t make any Buckeye fan feel better to know that it was Fielding’s first career miss under 30 yards.
After all, in the modern placekicking game, where NFL kickers regularly bomb 60-yarders right down the middle, nothing short of perfection will do.
I won’t say that Fielding has been money throughout his time at Ohio State, but he’s had a solid collegiate kicking career. His only consistent area of struggle has been beyond 50 yards, where he went 0-for-1 in each of the last three years. That may be consistently unsuccessful, but it’s also a small sample size.
Starting from short range, Fielding has missed only one single point after touchdown in three years — back in 2023 — going 176-for-177 in conversions over his career (99.4%). Fielding is 92.9% accurate from the range of the Indiana miss (20-29 yards), hitting 13 of 14.
From 30-39 yards, he is 17-for-20 (85%), which includes those two misses against the Wolverines in 2024. Perhaps Day could have used Fielding’s backup if he was hurt that Saturday, but that didn’t happen and there was no guarantee of better results from a less-experienced backup. But I digress…
From 40-49 yards, Fielding has converted 15 of his 19 attempts (79%) over his career, with three of his four misses coming in his first year as Ohio State’s starting kicker. He’s 10-of-11 from that range the last two years (90.1%).
But these are just numbers over the course of his career. Perhaps a comparison is a better indicator? Fielding’s 84.2% accuracy in field goals is tied for 28th best nationally. That’s hardly elite, but it is in the upper third of all FBS kickers. For comparison, Miami’s Carter Davis has hit 75% of his 20 attempts in 2025 and his accuracy ranks tied for 76th.
None of the above is to say Ohio State fans shouldn’t demand excellence at the position. I’m merely pointing out that “solid” doesn’t equal “sucks.” That said, Fielding may have to win this game late and almost certainly will be called upon to make a kick at some point against the Hurricanes.
None of his career numbers will matter against Miami. All that will matter is that he shoots his shot when the time comes and that he is successful while shooting that shot. In other words, his 1-for-2 performance against Indiana won’t cut it in the College Football Playoff, and like Sayin and the offensive line, he must be better.
Jermaine Mathews Jr.
Indiana has a great passing attack and boasts the 2025 Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback. Given that, Ohio State did a fantastic overall job defending the pass against the Hoosiers.
However, Fernando Mendoza picked on Jermaine Mathews Jr. when he needed a big play, and that strategy was successful. Mathews was victimized for Indiana’s only touchdown when Elijah Sarratt went up over him to catch the ball in the end zone.
The junior defensive back also gave up a critical long pass on third-and-6 when the OSU defense was trying to get the ball back for one last shot at a game-winning drive, and a stop in that situation would have given the Buckeyes decent field position.
Mathews wasn’t the only one victimized, as Lorenzo Styles Jr. also got beat deep down the middle once. Carson Beck will have watched the Indiana film and feel he can take advantage of Mathews the way Mendoza did. It’s imperative that the Cincinnati native shrugs off that game and bounces back against the Canes.
These are the positions Ohio State will most need improvement from against Miami coming off a tight conference championship game loss to Indiana.
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