OSU - Minn preview
COVER PHOTO: OSU running back TreVeyon Henderson (left) and tight end Gee Scott, Jr. (right) celebrates Henderson's second quarter touchdown on Nov. 11 against Michigan State. The Buckeyes won, 38-3. Picture by Aaron Layne/Columbus Wired.
On Saturday, No. 2 ranked Ohio State (10-0, 7-0 Big Ten) will welcome Minnesota (5-5, 3-4) into Ohio Stadium for a conference matchup that means a couple of things for each team: an opportunity for the Golden Gophers to become bowl eligible with a sixth win and a chance to stay in the hunt for their first-ever appearance in the Big Ten championship game.
For the Buckeyes, they would remain undefeated, stay relevant for a spot in the conference championship game as well as the College Football Playoff, and connote another shot at taking on bitter arch-rival Michigan where the two teams would be unbeaten.
That is, if the third-rated Wolverines can beat the 6-4 Terrapins in College Park, Maryland this weekend and those chances are pretty good.
It’s a long shot for the Gophers to make it but if several things fall in line - like a victory against the Buckeyes as well as a follow-up win next weekend versus Wisconsin while watching Iowa drop their last two games of the season - then they’ll have a greater chance of being in a better position to make it to the conference championship game.
Iowa currently leads the Big Ten West division with a comfortable two-game lead over Minnesota as well as Nebraska, Wisconsin, Northwestern and Illinois, who are all in a five-way tie for second.
However, the Gophers hold the head-to-head edge over both Nebraska and Iowa after opening up the season with a 13-10 comeback win over the Cornhuskers and a zany last-minute thriller in Iowa City that saw Minnesota edge the Hawkeyes 12-10 thanks to a 54-yard punt return for a touchdown by Iowa’s Cooper DeJean being called back on a fair catch penalty.
Not only do the Gophers need Iowa to lose at home against Illinois and at Nebraska but need Northwestern to lose this weekend against Purdue but then upend Illinois in Champaign, Ill.
If all of that falls in line, then the Gophers are packing their bags for Indy.
This scenario, though, is kind of like Lloyd Christmas’s response to Mary Swanson in the movie “Dumb and Dumber” when she told him he had a million to one chance of dating her.
“So you’re saying there’s a chance!”
Yeah, it’s about that likely.
But as the saying goes, anything can happen on “any given Saturday”.
HISTORY
In the 102 years since their first game ever played on Ohio Field in 1921, this will be the 54th meeting between the two schools and Ohio State is 46-7 all-time against including a 24-3 record in Columbus.
However, the Golden Gophers won four of the first nine games against the Buckeyes between 1922 and 1949. Since then, though, the Maroon and Gold have been able to pull off only three wins, the last of which came in 2000 in the Horseshoe where an unranked, Glen Mason-coached Gopher squad pulled off a 29-17 upset over John Cooper’s fifth-ranked Scarlet and Gray. The other two wins were in 1966 (17-7) and 1981 (35-31) both in Minneapolis.
Since 2000, OSU has won 11 in a row.
P.J. Fleck is in his sixth season as the Gophers’ leading man and has yet to beat the Buckeyes in two tries as their head coach. His first loss was in 2018 (30-14) and the second came two years ago in the season-opener at Huntington Bank Stadium, 45-31.
Those aren’t the only two games he’s coached against Ohio State, though. In 2015, he brought in an upstart Western Michigan team that gave the defending national champion Buckeyes a run for their money as the Scarlet and Gray were able to escape with a hard-fought 28-14 win.
MATCHUP
Currently, Fleck’s team has been fairly wracked with injuries and he said it’s been a constant battle to get his guys healthy and ready for the field.
“Unfortunately, some of our best players are out. It just seems like every week, the inconsistency of who’s actually out there… again, there’s no excuses, it 100 percent falls on the coaches and what we have to do to get them better. Sometimes there are things outside of your control with injuries. Some less, some more.”
Among them has been running back Darius Taylor, who hasn’t played since their 12-10 win over Iowa in Iowa City on Oct. 21. Even still, he leads the team with 591 yards and four touchdowns.
Even with the possibility of some of those guys being out, Fleck knows it’s going to be a task to ask for his guys to catch the plane out of Columbus with a win.
“They’ve got really good players, they've got a lot of really good players (and) they’ve got really good depth,” he said.
Ohio State, though, has also been bitten by the injury bug which has included several starters like safeties Lathan Ransom, Josh Proctor and linebacker Tommy Eichenberg, all of whom missed last week’s game against Michigan State.
Ransom has been out since suffering a non-contact leg injury during the fourth quarter of the Wisconsin game on Oct. 21. Head coach Ryan Day said this week Ransom could be back for next week’s season finale against Michigan but didn’t make any promises. Proctor and Eichenberg are game-time decisions.
Day feels like his team will be close to full bore when suiting up against the Gophers.
“I feel like we’re going to be at just about max capacity,” he said this week. “Coming down the home stretch, I feel good about it. But it’s week-to-week. It’s important that you have everybody and the bullets in the chamber.”
Minnesota comes in as the Big Ten’s eighth-ranked scoring offense (22.5 points per game) and ninth in total offense at 318 yards per game. Fleck knows both yards and points will come at a premium against the nation’s second-rated scoring defense (9.9 ppg) and fourth-ranked total defense (262 ypg).
“Coach (Jim) Knowles does a really good job on defense,” said Fleck. “It’s hard to get shots on these guys and downfield throws because they’re really, really twitchy, really fast (and) really long. The front four, whoever they put in there, not only are they really good against the run but they’re all pass rushers. I think that’s what is different about this group (of defensive linemen) than I’ve seen in the past.”
On the other side of the ball, the Buckeyes rank third in the conference in scoring offense (33 ppg) and are tops overall in the B1G at 428 ypg. Minnesota also ranks next-to-last in the entire country in defending the red zone, allowing opponents to score 96 percent of the time. But getting there hasn’t been necessarily easy as their 30 trips against is tied-for 29th-best in the nation.
Ohio State ranks 71st in the FBS at 83 percent with their 42 trips coming in tied-for 32nd.
“I think they’re well coached,” said Fleck. “I’ve got so much respect for Ryan and I know Ryan very well, I consider Ryan a friend. And he gets them to play really hard (and keeps) them focused.”
The Buckeyes are favored by 28.
The game kicks off at 4 p.m. ET and will air on the Big Ten Network.