Three Shots: Indiana

If my picks were a real basketball team, it would have been Evansville from Tuesday night against the Buckeyes. That is not a good thing.

But we went back into the gym and put up some shots in advance of the Indiana game and the hope is to have a bounceback week.

The prediction game is a difficult one, and really being able to sort out last week’s game against Northwestern was a challenge. Honestly, after Ohio State gave up its lone touchdown, the defense locked down the Cats, but shots that almost go down don’t count and neither do picks

So let’t just get to it and look back at last week and make some picks.

last week

Free Throw: Ohio State will have at least two rushing touchdowns

Status: Hit

Free throws are supposed to be simple but I try not to make it too simple. Northwestern was decent against the run and saying that Ohio State would get two scores on the ground was not exactly teeing it up.

Quinshon Judkins took care of that for me though with a pair of short touchdowns. In the pick, it really didn’t matter if it was him, TreVeyon Henderson, Will Howard, or someone else, just get me two.

And they did, and got me my point.

Three Pointer: A player not named Will Howard will throw for an Ohio State TD

Status: Miss

There was a chance we were going to have a pass thrown by someone else, but not one of the back-up quarterbacks but rather Emeka Egbuka.

He was dinged with a sack as he did not throw the ball, but you have to wonder what the result of the play would have been.

This is not exactly how I see things going, I was expecting the starters to get pulled sooner and Ryan Day to allow his 2s to run the first-team offense and a score to come there.

I don’t feel that this was a bad pick, but it is one that I won’t be making again based on what the remaining schedule looks like and could look like beyond that.

Full Court: Ohio State shuts out Northwestern AND holds NU to 185 or fewer yards of total offense

Status: Miss

Well, aim big and miss big.

I did not get the shutout but Ohio State did hold the Cats to just one score, so I don’t feel that I was too far out of the neighborhood.

As for the yardage, Northwestern had 118 yards in the first quarter and 251 in the game. So, if it were just a three-quarter game (2-3-4), I would have had my yardage mark.

Close doesn’t get you anything.

Current Score: 9

free throw

Ohio State will rush for 125 yards or more

There are a couple of layers to this one. Indiana allows just 72.2 yards per game on the ground, tops in the nation.

Second layer, Ohio State is having its fourth offensive line configuration of the season after the injury to Seth McLaughlin. We are not exactly sure how things are going to look as the Buckeyes will be down to just three of the linemen who started the season and continuing the game of reshuffling the chairs before the music stops.

The final layer is that Ohio State has run for more than 125 yards in all but one of its games. Which one did they miss? That was the Nebraska game, the first game after the loss of Josh Simmons at left tackle. It took Ohio State a game to figure things out and find the right set up. Ohio State cannot afford that this week.

I think that the Buckeyes do find much more immediate success. I am not calling for a much larger number, like I would have if the line were intact, but I don’t believe things will be as dire as others do.

three pointer

Ohio State will sack Indiana quarterbacks more than four times

I haven’t taken many defensive picks this year outside of scoring, and this feels like a bit of a challenge. IU has done a good job of keeping its quarterbacks upright and both Kurtis Rourke and Tayven Jackson have legs that can scramble.

IU gave up four sacks two weeks ago (its last game) against Michigan, so there is an opportunity there. Prior to that, Indiana gave up four sacks over a total of its previous five games, so that also shows that the Hoosiers are not ones to get into bad situations.

Again, Ohio State doesn’t have a Bosa or a Young on the roster in terms of production, but at some point, in your biggest game you need to play like it is the biggest game, and I am attaching three points to that belief.

full court

Ohio State scores 40-plus points and nets 525-plus yards of total offense

This is a free throw against most previous versions of the Indiana team. This ain’t that team.

Indiana has not given up more than 28 points (Maryland) in a game and hasn’t given up more than 401 yards of total offense (also Maryland).

Ohio State is a much better offensive team than Maryland or Michigan or anyone on this roster, but when you have gone out and won 10 straight games, you start to believe you are pretty good, and you just may be right.

I think the yardage number could be the easier number to hit because I doubt that IU is going to try and limit possessions by slowing things down. That is not who Indiana is, that is not who Curt Cignetti is, so if you give Ohio State a couple more drives, you are going to get more yards.

Hitting both of these numbers will be a challenge, but that’s what the ful court shot is all about.

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