Ohio State Looks Like the Big Ten’s Team to Beat Again, But Must Prove It In The Next Seven Weeks

Real Pod Wednesdays

A week off for the Buckeyes gave us the opportunity to watch more of other teams playing college football this past weekend, and it only gave us more reason to believe Ohio State is still the team to beat in the Big Ten.

Iowa got beaten soundly by Purdue and Michigan State barely beat Indiana, taking some wind out of the sails of two of Ohio State's top competitors in the conference. At the same time, though, it was also a reminder that there are plenty of teams capable of beating just about anybody in the Big Ten – a reminder that comes as the Buckeyes are about to begin a second-half schedule that includes many of the Big Ten's top teams, including Indiana this Saturday.

We begin this week's episode by talking about why we think Ohio State is starting to more clearly look like the best team in the Big Ten, but also why the Buckeyes will have to prove themselves over and over again over the next seven weeks. We also take a look at the national landscape (15:45) and which teams outside the Big Ten look like top College Football Playoff contenders – and why there's truly no reason to worry about Ohio State being left out of the CFP if it can finish the season as a 1-loss Big Ten champion.

We turn our focus to the task at hand at the 25:45 mark of the show and talk about this week’s game against Indiana. The Hoosiers haven't been nearly as successful this year as they were last year, when they went into their matchup with Ohio State as a top-10 team and made a furious second-half comeback to lose to the Buckeyes by just seven points, but are they better than their 2-4 record indicates? We break down what to expect from Saturday’s matchup and make our score predictions.

In the final 17 minutes of the show, we discuss a grab bag of topics including how many carries TreVeyon Henderson should get in the second half of the season, a revelation that Quinn Ewers nearly played against Maryland even though he might not play at all this year and our takeaways from watching basketball practice last week.