Ohio State’s performance against Northwestern didn’t meet expectations, but how much should we really take away from a game that was played in terrible weather?
That’s the big question we seek to answer on this week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays. We were in Evanston on Saturday and experienced firsthand just how windy it was, so we know it’s no excuse to say the weather had a major impact on the game. Still, there are some valid concerns to be raised by the Buckeyes’ struggles to pull away from Northwestern – most notably, the run game struggling for the third week in a row and the potential for Ohio State to have to play in more bad weather as November continues.
There were also positives to take away from Saturday’s game, though – namely, C.J. Stroud showing he can be a weapon with his legs if and when Ohio State needs him to be – and we think it’s important to keep a lackluster performance in perspective, as the Buckeyes are still the only team in the country that’s won every game it’s played this season by double digits.
The full rundown of what we’re talking about on this week’s show, in which we also preview the upcoming game against Indiana, discuss the outlook of the College Football Playoff race after losses by Tennessee, Clemson and Alabama and share our takeaways from Ohio State men’s basketball’s season-opening win over Robert Morris:
- 0:21: Admittedly, we underestimated just how bad the weather would be, but it had a big impact on the game
- 4:26: What we make of another underwhelming day for Ohio State’s rushing offense
- 11:07: Ryan Day admits he doesn’t usually want C.J. Stroud to run – but he might want Michigan to hear that
- 19:25: Slow starts another troubling trend Ohio State’s offense must overcome
- 21:11: Ohio State holds Northwestern to seven points, though its defense showed some vulnerabilities
- 25:24: J.T. Tuimoloau, Taron Vincent, Ronnie Hickman, Jesse Mirco among top performers vs. Northwestern
- 29:27: Giving credit where due – Northwestern put up a much better fight than we expected
- 32:04: Ohio State is still undefeated, OSU still has the nation’s No. 1 offense and C.J. Stroud is still the Heisman frontrunner
- 34:55: A tight game is a wake-up call for Ohio State not to look past its next two games before Michigan
- 36:05: Why we think Ohio State will blow out Indiana this week
- 42:20: How this past weekend changed the College Football Playoff race
- 46:58: Where the Ohio State/Michigan loser might fit into a hierarchy of one-loss teams
- 51:06: Updated CFP picks
- 53:59: Justice Sueing and Zed Key start the season strong as Ohio State men’s basketball’s best players
- 57:48: Isaac Likekele could be a Kyle Young-esque “glue guy” for this year’s Buckeyes
- 1:02:00: Ups and downs for Ohio State’s freshmen in game one
You can listen to Real Pod Wednesdays in the audio player above or on various podcast streaming platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts.
