Staff Picks: Ohio State Heads to Wrigley to Take On Northwestern

Ohio State will face a unique test on Saturday when the Buckeyes face Northwestern at historic Wrigley Field in Chicago. Will the Buckeyes brave the elements and an unfamiliar atmosphere and avoid the look ahead to upcoming showdowns with Indiana and Michigan?

Ross Fulton

Look for Ohio state to try get up quickly to gear up for the stretch run—and to target Emeka Egbuka early. Northwestern’s defense will present some challenges with their cover 4 based scheme but should not possess much of a challenge on the offensive front.

Ohio State 43 Northwestern 6

Tony Gerdeman

Northwestern’s offense isn’t very good and their defense gave up 41 points to Indiana. The Wildcats will go with two quarterbacks, which the Buckeyes are used to by now. Expect the Ohio State defensive line to continue rotating.

They’ll have Tyleik Williams back, which may negate their need to run the Jack. But also, they only have so much time left to work on it before they have to decide on how much they’re actually going to use it. The defense can be aggressive as heck because Northwestern isn’t great about making teams pay for mistakes.

I expect Will Howard to have another good day. The Wildcats have only given up one pass play of 50 yards this season. Expect that to reach two by the end of this game. The running game will continue to mix fair play with big plays. Maybe Julian Sayin will be able to complete some passes this week. My 5-star virtual lock of the year is that Carnell Tate scores a touchdown in his home town.

Ohio State 38 Northwestern 10

Marc Givler

I don’t see a path to Northwestern winning this game, but I do think the elements of an ugly game are there. You never know what you’re going to get in Chicago from a weather standpoint, particularly with the wind and we’ve seen that cause the Buckeyes some issues in the past.

I also think this game sets up more as a letdown game than the Purdue game a week ago as the Buckeyes are now directly up against the huge games against Indiana and Michigan.

Combine that with my concern over the turf situation, it’s been a problem there before, and this might just be one of those games where you just want to get out of there healthy and with a win.

I think OSU will be able to grind things out on the ground if push really comes to shove and I have a hard time seeing Northwestern put up many points in this contest.

Ohio State 31 Northwestern 7

Kevin Noon

Here is another game where the Buckeyes should be able to do most of what they want to do against the Wildcats of Northwestern.

While Ryan Field is being rebuilt, the Cats are splitting games between a couple of venues, and a big draw like Ohio State has this one at the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field.

Ohio State’s eight biggest quarters of football are beyond this game, so do the Buckeyes come in and just do enough to put this game away or do we see the team go out and attempt to hang 40-plus points?

The Cats are not good this year, one year after David Braun won Big Ten Coach of the Year honors for his rookie effort. It has been a major step back this season and nobody is expecting a whole lot of resistance.

Other games in MLB parks have seen mixed results in terms of offense, the Fenway Bowl has seen an average of 23.5 points per game by the winning team, the Pinstripe Bowl has seen teams get into the 40s and 50s.

The Buckeyes will do what they need to do but will also look to get the starters out in the second half. The Cats will get on the board with some sort of ‘can of corn’ bloop score, but this game won’t be as close as the score would lead you to believe. 

Ohio State 38 Northwestern 7

Tom Orr

Games against Northwestern tend to be closer than expected, and are generally somewhat low-scoring. Sometimes that’s because of the wind (2022), sometimes that’s because the OSU coaching staff is the last group in the building to recognize that their running back is having the greatest day in school history (2020), sometimes a stubbornly-poor OSU defense won’t let the Buckeyes pull away until late (2018), and sometimes it’s one of the stupidest wins in program history (2016). 

Add in the novelty of Wrigley Field and whatever concerns you want to have about various walls or grass surfaces, and the fact that Indiana, Michigan, and potentially the Big Ten Championship Game are on deck, and this just has the feel of a game that’s going to be a “get in, get enough points to win, and get the starters out of there” game. That means it’s going to be lower-scoring than you expect. The quirks of playing in a century-old baseball stadium will come into play at some point, whether that’s with bad footing for running backs, or weird backdrops behind the goal posts messing with kickers. 

The Vegas line has it somewhere in the neighborhood of 36-8, but the “just get it over with” factor may shave a touchdown or even a little more off of that total. Everything about this screams “two years from now, you’ll remember them playing a game in Wrigley, but won’t be able to remember more than one play from the game.”

Ohio State 31 Northwestern 6