Last year the Nebraska Cornhuskers gave Ohio State all it could handle in Columbus, losing by just five points. The Buckeye defense showed an inability to stop Big Red enough on offense, and it turned into a stomach-churning affair that OSU was lucky to survive.
Fast forward to this year and the Buckeyes are now faced with going on the road to face Nebraska in a raucous night-time setting that will add to the challenge. Ohio State is the better team, but that doesn’t always translate to on the field performance with all the variables that will go into this one.
So, on that note, here’s three reasons the children of the corn could give OSU fits on Saturday night.
Next … The hornet’s nest
No. 1 – The environment
Iowa in 2017, and Purdue last year. What did they both have in common? In each case, Ohio State had to travel on the road and drop itself into an environment where the crowd — and opponent — were lying in the weeds, motivated to take down the big boy of the conference.
The crowd was loud and rowdy, the teams played their best game of the year, and the Buckeyes got down early and couldn’t climb out of the hole. The environment for this one will be more like those two than anything else on the schedule.
Nebraska and Scott Frost want to make a statement, ESPN’s College GameDay is there, and the fans are yearning for a program-turning win. It has all the ingredients to bake a casserole of trouble for Ryan Day and company.
Next … A mobile quarterback
No. 2 – Nebraska QB Adrian Martinez
The Buckeye defense has looked fantastic this year, but it’ll be facing a different dimension this week. That’s because ‘Husker quarterback Adrian Martinez can keep plays alive and move the chains with his legs when things break down. He’s one of the best signal-callers in the Big Ten, and he could be a handful.
Ohio State hasn’t faced a real dual-threat under center yet, so the game plan was to get up field and get to the quarterback. That won’t change completely, but Martinez has the skill set to make the defense pay if and when lanes open up on the pass rush. It’ll also likely result in one defender taken out of the mix to spy Martinez, potentially opening up things for the passing game.
Next … The risk/reward
No. 3 – Opportunistic Defense
Nebraska has made its fair share of mistakes on offense so far in 2019. It’s given the ball up far too often, and has seen too many yellow hankies out on the field. But there’s the other side too. The Cornhuskers are tops in the Big Ten (No. 5 in the country) in takeaways so far this season.
So yeah, you might get some charitable contributions, but things might be going the other way too. And, generally speaking, a team tends to be much better at home in being careless with the ball then when on the road. So, I’d expect Nebraska to not yak away too many opportunities on Saturday.
This one could be more of a donnybrook than the experts think. That being said, we still like Ohio State to pull it out.
