50 For 50: Carnell Tate Hits The Big Time

Welcome to first edition of our daily feature that I am calling “50 for 50” where I attempt to get us to Big Ten Media Days — which are 50 days away — with a daily sampling of what we can look forward to this upcoming college football season.

We will do this via the following categories: the 50 biggest individual matchups for the Buckeyes this season, the 50 most important college football games this season, 50 Buckeye things to look forward to this season, 50 national predictions, 50 Big Ten predictions, and 50 predictions involving the Buckeyes.

Biggest Buckeye Matchups

Penn State RB Nick Singleton vs. Ohio State LB Sonny Styles

This is a matchup between arguably the Big Ten’s best running back and arguably the Big Ten’s best linebacker. Nick Singleton has not had much success on the ground against the Buckeyes, rushing for 108 yards on 29 carries in three career games against the Buckeyes. He did have six catches for 54 yards against Ohio State last year, however, so this won’t just be a ground-based matchup. Ohio State linebacker Sonny Styles had a season-high nine tackles last year against the Nittany Lions, and it won’t be a surprise if his season high in 2025 comes against Penn State as well. The winner of this matchup will own a significant say in which team wins the game.

Most Important Games

USC Trojans at Oregon Ducks, November 22

USC will have games at Illinois, Notre Dame, and Nebraska long before they head to Oregon, so we’ll know quite a bit about how good the Trojans are this year before that game happens. And yet, even if those games go in USC’s favor, people will still be waiting to see what happens in Eugene before buying in too heavily. This game is a huge opportunity for Lincoln Riley to put his stake on the West Coast and make a statement to the rest of the Big Ten.

Things To Look Forward To

Carnell Tate taking the next step.

Carnell Tate is no longer flying under the radar. After a sophomore season where he posted 52 catches for 733 yards and four touchdowns, he can now be found on most preseason All-Big Ten lists and mock drafts. Expectations are ramped up for the true junior, and now we’re going to get to see what Tate can do as one of the Buckeyes’ top two targets. He should add his name to the growing list of 1,000-yard receivers from Ohio State.

National College Football Predictions

Pitt will start out 7-0 again.

Most people have forgotten that Pittsburgh started out 7-0 last year — mostly because they finished 7-6 on the season. The Panthers have a bunch of starters back and conference road games at West Virginia, Florida State, and Syracuse over their first seven games. None of those are daunting, neither are their home games against Louisville and Boston College. The crazy thing is following their seventh game, they have a home game against North Carolina State and road game at Stanford. But predicting 7-0 is plenty bold. I don’t need to get into crazy territory.

Big Ten Football Predictions

Iowa will have 300 yards passing in a game for the first time since 2019.

This is what we call swinging for the fences. The excitement is high for South Dakota State transfer quarterback Mark Gronowski who has won a pair of FCS national titles and thrown for over 10,000 yards in his career. He may not have the receiving talent around him that he once did, but there has to be a way he can muster up a 300-yard game this year.

Ohio State Football Predictions

Three Buckeye quarterbacks will throw multiple touchdowns.

If this doesn’t sound like much of a prediction for you, I’ll have you know that it’s been 30 years since three Buckeye quarterbacks have thrown multiple touchdowns in the same season. It happened in 1995 when Bobby Hoying threw 28 and Stanley Jackson and Tommy Hoying each threw two. This prediction is also asking a true freshman to throw multiple touchdowns, which hasn’t happened since Kyle McCord did it in 2021 — and he needed a start against Akron to get it done. The last time it happened before that was Braxton Miller in 2011, who started more than just one game that year.