The Buckeyes played like themselves (minus a few early plays on each side of the ball) and ended up mauling Michigan in The Game, 27-9. Julian Sayin threw a touchdown pass to all three of his starting wide receivers, two of whom recovered sufficiently from injury to return, and an insane 12-minute drive put the game away in the snowy second half. Matt Patricia’s defense was untroubled by the Michigan run game and did not let explosive freshman Bryce Underwood have anything all day.
We fondly recapped a great day for the Buckeyes, looked back at our score predictions and picks to click, and poured over the game stats. When Bo Jackson outgains the entire Michigan offense, the stats do not lie.
After our walk through the greatest rivalry in sports, we looked around the rest of the Big Ten to see how others made out. It was heartbreak for Rutgers in the matchup with Penn State for bowl eligibility, as an unforced error (and a terrible play call) combined to give the Nittany Lions the bowl berth. Iowa blasted Nebraska in Farmageddon on Black Friday. Wisconsin was driving but a turnover helped Minnesota win Paul Bunyan’s axe. Northwestern likewise imploded against Illinois as the Fighting Illini won Lincoln’s hat. Other than that, the weekend went as expected.
We touched on Michigan State firing Jonathan Smith and the reports about Pat Fitzgerald, which was not official at the time of our recording session. Seems like the Spartans are going back to basics. We also ran down the final Big Ten standings briefly and each of us correctly predicted the exact finishing position of four of the 18 teams. Not great!
Finally, we ahead to Saturday’s matchup with Indiana in the Big Ten title game. The Hoosiers might be the best team the Buckeyes will play all season and we’re taking nothing for granted, including the possibility of a rematch in the College Football Playoff. Everyone knows about Fernando Mendoza, but Indiana’s defense isn’t getting enough credit. The Buckeyes will need to be better against the Hoosiers than they were at Ann Arbor to be successful, and they were fairly dominant up there.
We discuss the matchup, make our picks to click, and do our best to predict the final score. I know we said The Game would be close, but we’re doubling down this week. This will be a close game.
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As always, thanks for listening!
0:20 - Headbutting an official is perfectly fine, and other things we learned from The Game.
35:10 - The games around the B1G weren’t all good this weekend, but some of them were quite good.
1:02:20 - The Buckeyes and Hoosiers have a lot of things riding on Saturday night’s game in Indy.
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