Ohio State vs. Indiana Preview: Buckeyes Begin 2023 Season with Big Ten Road Game

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For the past eight months, Ohio State’s football players have only been able to compete against each other. That will finally change on Saturday.

Since the clock struck midnight both literally and figuratively on Ohio State’s 2022 as Noah Ruggles’ field goal attempt sailed wide left and the Buckeyes suffered a 42-41 loss to Georgia, the Buckeyes have had to live with a two-game losing streak for the past eight months. At long last, the Buckeyes will get to begin washing that bad taste out of their mouths on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. in Bloomington, Indiana, when they return to the field to play Indiana in the 2023 season opener for both teams.

INDIANA HOOSIERS

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3:30 p.m. – SATURDAY, SEP. 2 MEMORIAL STADIUM BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA

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After eight months of preparation that culminated with 25 preseason practices over the month, the Buckeyes are hungry to play football against someone other than themselves and begin showing the world what they are capable of this season.

It’s a season opener that carries more weight than some years, as the Buckeyes will begin the season by playing a Big Ten opponent on the road, but they’d be excited for Saturday no matter who they were playing.

“With it being Indiana, it could be anybody. We're excited to finally play somebody who has a different jersey,” Xavier Johnson said Wednesday. “And so we're gonna go out there, put our best foot forward and I think we're gonna like what we see.”

The Headlines

McCord to Start, Brown Expected to Play

The question that’s dominated Ohio State’s entire offseason was finally answered on Tuesday – at least for the first game of the season – when Ryan Day announced that Kyle McCord will be the Buckeyes’ starting quarterback against Indiana. McCord will be making the second start of his career, having previously started one game as a true freshman against Akron in 2021 when C.J. Stroud was sidelined by a shoulder injury.

McCord performed well in that start, completing 13 of 18 passing attempts for 319 yards and two touchdowns with one interception in his collegiate debut, but the stakes will be higher this time around. While Indiana’s pass defense isn’t expected to be stout – the Hoosiers ranked 120th in the FBS in passing yards allowed per game last year, and they have an inexperienced secondary – it’s still a Big Ten opponent. And McCord faces the pressure of trying to lock down a starting job he hasn’t fully won yet.

While Day said McCord earned the opportunity to start against Indiana with his consistency in practice over the last two weeks, Day also said he intends to give Devin Brown “meaningful snaps” against the Hoosiers, leaving the door open for the starting quarterback competition to continue Saturday and potentially beyond.

It’s uncertain what that will look like, given that Ohio State has never had a quarterback competition extend into the season since Day arrived in Columbus, but it is certain that the quarterback storyline will add intrigue to a game that the Buckeyes are heavily favored to win.

The most important task for Ohio State on Saturday is to simply win the game, and Day can’t allow an ongoing quarterback competition to get in the way of that. But every pass McCord and Brown throw on Saturday will be evaluated as McCord looks to prove he should be Ohio State’s starter all year long while Brown will look to give the Buckeyes reason to keep the competition going.

Start of A Road-Heavy Schedule

It’s not too often that Ohio State begins the season with a road game – the Buckeyes have only started their season away from home twice in the last seven years – but playing away from the friendly confines of Ohio Stadium is something the Buckeyes will have to be comfortable with this season. With only six home games on the schedule, Ohio State is set to play six true road games in the regular season for the first time since 1895.

“This year, we have to win a bunch of games on the road. So no better place to start than a conference game on the road,” Day said this week. “We talked about it, when we looked at the schedule when it came out, that we were gonna have to be able to handle some of the environments on the road in this conference.”

Ohio State’s recent history of opening the season with a Big Ten game on the road suggests it’s not an easy task. When Ohio State opened the season at Indiana in a Thursday night game in 2017, the Buckeyes trailed the Hoosiers 14-13 at halftime – and 21-20 with less than five minutes to play in the third quarter – before pulling away late to win 49-21. When Ohio State again opened the season with a Thursday night conference road game against Minnesota in 2021, the Buckeyes trailed 14-10 at halftime – and 21-17 midway through the third quarter – before going on to win 45-31.

With a schedule that includes away games against Notre Dame, Wisconsin and Michigan this season, though, Saturday’s game will give the Buckeyes a first taste of playing on the road in a year where they’ll need to be able to perform well away from home. The Buckeyes are embracing the challenge.

“Coming into a road environment, you just have to band with your brothers,” left guard Donovan Jackson said Wednesday. “There’s thousands of people booing you, thousands of people wishing you miss the play, but as long as you have the 11 guys on the field with you, that's all you need.”

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New-Look Hoosiers Chasing Better Results

Outside of the nearly complete roster overhaul at Deion Sanders’ Colorado, few college football rosters look more different from last season than Indiana’s. The Hoosiers return only eight starters from last season, the fourth-fewest among FBS schools, and their roster for the 2023 season includes 48 new players, 32 of whom were added via the transfer portal.

The changes on the defensive side of the ball are particularly stark, where the Hoosiers lost nine of their top 10 tacklers from last season. There are a few more familiar faces on the offensive side of the ball, including 2022 leading receiver Cam Camper and running backs Josh Henderson and Jaylin Lucas, though the Hoosiers have declined to name a starting quarterback following a preseason competition between Tennessee transfer Tayven Jackson and redshirt freshman Brendan Sorsby.

The bigger-picture question for the Hoosiers is whether their transfer additions will make them more competitive after back-to-back losing seasons in which they won just six combined games. While Indiana was one of the feel-good stories of the 2020 season when it went 6-2 and Tom Allen was named the AFCA Coach of the Year, that momentum has been drained out of the program over the past two years, putting Allen on the hot seat entering 2023.

Opening against Ohio State won’t make it easy for Indiana to start the year with a win. But Allen says he and his players are embracing the challenge of going up against the nation’s third-ranked team.

“There's nothing like being tested by the best. Those that are elite competitors, they thrive in that. They want that,” Allen said this week. “Even though it isn't the easiest way to start something out, I think it also can be the best way for you to become who I believe you can become.”

Keep An Eye On These Guys

WR Cam Camper

Camper was Indiana’s leading receiver in 2022 despite playing in only seven games. He caught 46 passes for 569 yards and two touchdowns, including seven catches of 20 yards or more, before his season ended early with a torn ACL.

That meant the Buckeyes didn’t have to face Camper last November, but he’ll present a bigger test than any of the receivers Ohio State had to face in that 56-14 win. Allen said Camper could be on a “pitch count” in the season opener because he’s coming off an injury, but said Camper “should be full bore” when he’s on the field. That makes No. 6 a player Ohio State’s secondary will need to have circled on the scouting report, though Ohio State safety Lathan Ransom said the Buckeyes aren’t zeroing in on one Hoosier receiver specifically.

“They got a lot of dynamic players all over the field. And then also, they get the ball out really fast,” Ransom said. “So it’s something that we've been aware of and we're really excited for the challenge.”

RB/KR Jaylin Lucas

Speaking of dynamic players, Indiana may have the most dangerous kickoff returner in the country. Lucas was the only player in the FBS to return two kickoffs for touchdowns in 2022, earning him first-team All-American honors.

At only 5-foot-9 and 170 pounds, Lucas is small but has elite speed; according to The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman, he was clocked at 4.29 seconds in the 40-yard dash this offseason.

He didn’t do a ton of damage in the run game last year, running the ball only 49 times for 271 yards and two touchdowns (with only six carries for 17 yards vs. Ohio State), but Lucas was a true freshman at the time. Now that he has a year of experience under his belt, he’s expected to factor more heavily into the offense in a running back tandem with Josh Henderson while potentially also seeing some snaps at slot receiver.

Most of all, though, Lucas will present an immediate test for Ohio State’s kickoff coverage unit, as a game-changing return by Lucas might be the Hoosiers’ best chance of pushing for an upset.

DE Andre Carter 

With a defense that returns only two starters (2022 leading tackler Aaron Casey and hybrid safety/linebacker Noah Pierre) from last year’s defense, Indiana will be counting on its offseason transfer additions to make a big impact on that side of the ball, perhaps none more than Western Michigan transfer defensive end Andre Carter.

A second-team All-MAC selection in 2022, Carter was a dynamic edge defender for the Broncos, recording 68 total tackles from his defensive end spot with 13.5 tackles for loss and seven sacks. He was graded by Pro Football Focus as a top-20 pass-rusher among FBS edge defenders last season, so he brings a much-needed spark to a Hoosier defense that recorded only 20 sacks a year ago.

With Ohio State breaking in a new pair of starting offensive tackles in Josh Simmons and Josh Fryar, Carter will be capable of putting them to the test right away. His ability to generate pressure will be needed for an Indiana defense that gave up 56 points on 662 yards to Ohio State last season.

“I think he's really good. I think his defending the run’s really good, and I think his pass rush is really good,” Fryar said of Carter. “He plays with a high motor and he never stops.”

Game Week Talk

“I have a ton of respect for him. He's done a hell of a job there. I think he's a first-class person. I think he cares about his players. I think he does it the right way. I just think he's special, I really do.”– Tom Allen on Ryan Day

“We've been banging against each other all camp, it’s been a long month, and I think we can't wait to play somebody else.”– Lathan Ransom on the excitement of starting the season

“We're looking at it like this is going to be a dogfight … I think if you do anything else, it's dangerous.”– Ryan Day on Ohio State’s mentality entering the game

Get Smart

• Ohio State has a 79-12-5 all-time record against Indiana.
• Ohio State has won 28 straight games against Indiana and is undefeated in its last 30 contests against the Hoosiers. The Buckeyes tied the Hoosiers 27-27 in 1990 but haven’t lost since a 41-7 defeat to Indiana in 1988.
• Ohio State’s roster includes four players from Indiana: starting right tackle Josh Fryar, rotational defensive end Caden Curry, reserve offensive tackle Zen Michalski and freshman defensive end Joshua Mickens.
• Indiana’s roster features six players from Ohio, including three starters: left tackle Carter Smith (Powell), starting center Zach Carpenter (Cincinnati) and long snapper Sean Wracher (Akron).
• Indiana co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach Matt Guerrieri was a senior advisor/analyst at Ohio State last season.
• Saturday’s game will be televised on CBS, marking the first time the Buckeyes have played on CBS since a 34-17 win over West Virginia in 1998. The Buckeyes have a 9-5-1 record all-time in games televised by CBS.
• Saturday’s game will be the first of at least three games Ohio State will play in the state of Indiana this season. The Buckeyes will play at Notre Dame on Sept. 23 and at Purdue on Oct. 14 and would play a fourth game in Indiana if it qualifies for the Big Ten Championship Game.

How It Plays Out

Line: Ohio State -30, O/U 59

With the exception of the 2020 game, in which Ohio State took a 35-7 lead before Indiana staged a furious near-comeback to make the final score 42-35, Ohio State has won each of its last other six matchups with the Hoosiers by at least 21 points. So it’s no surprise sportsbooks are listing the Buckeyes as a heavy favorite over the Hoosiers on Saturday.

Ohio State’s first-half struggles when opening the season with a Big Ten road game in past years is reason to be cautious about betting heavily on the Buckeyes to cover, but the majority of our staff still believes Ohio State will. Some early hiccups shouldn’t come as a surprise as the Buckeyes break in a new quarterback – or two new quarterbacks – and three new starters on the offensive line, but the scarlet and gray should eventually pull away from an Indiana squad that’s expected to be one of the Big Ten’s worst teams in 2023.

Eleven Warriors Staff Prediction
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