SATURDAY’S GAME
Northern Illinois at Ohio State, 3:30 p.m., ABC, 1410
Ohio State running back Ezekiel Elliott used Twitter to ask singer Taylor Swift out on a date Thursday. She performed at Nationwide Arena on Thursday and Friday nights.
“Want to grab something to eat after their concert?” Elliott wrote.
Later Elliott posted a photo of his puppy, Ace, and wrote, “I’m going to have to bring in the secret weapon.”
Elliott had about as much of a chance of landing a date with Swift as Cardale Jones had with UFC champion Ronda Rousey during the summer or Northern Illinois has of beating the No. 1 Buckeyes at Ohio Stadium at 3:30 p.m. today. These kind of upsets happen so rarely, it’s just not worth predicting them.
On the other hand, Northern Illinois is no cupcake. Based on recent history, the Huskies might be able to beat half the teams in the Big Ten. Ohio State coach Urban Meyer called them a Big Ten-quality team on Monday.
“Our players will respect them,” Meyer said. “I don’t anticipate a problem with that. Because they’re good. That’s the thing. They’ve beaten Northwestern, Purdue, Iowa, and Minnesota. I wouldn’t call those upsets. I think these guys are very good.”
Ohio State (2-0) learned how good Northern Illinois (2-0) is by watching video all week.
“Honestly, they probably have the best offensive line we’ve seen so far,” Ohio State defensive tackle Tommy Schutt said. “They play hard. They play as a unit. They have a lot of experienced guys. It’s going to be a challenge for us. We’ve really want to attack the line of scrimmage this week.”
Northern Illinois returned seven starters on offense and seven on defense from a team that finished 11-3 last season. The Huskies have played in five straight Mid-American Conference championship games and won three of them. They have 59 wins since the beginning of the 2010 season, ranking fourth in the Football Bowl Subdivision behind Oregon (61), Alabama (60) and Florida State (60).
Quarterback Drew Hare leads the offense. He threw for a career-high 360 yards in a season-opening 38-30 victory at home against UNLV on Sept. 5. He followed that performance with 358 passing yards and four touchdowns in a 57-26 victory at home against Murray State on Saturday.
Hare’s top target is Kenny Golladay, who ranks second in the nation with 357 receiving yards through two games. He caught nine passes for 213 yards against UNLV.
On defense, Northern Illinois plays a style similar to Ohio State’s. In other words, it’s a style the Buckeyes see all the time.
Hawaii played an unorthodox defense that kept Ohio State guessing. The Buckeyes still put four offensive touchdowns on the board, but weren’t as dominant as they expected to be.
Ohio State knows Northern Illinois will throw some unexpected schemes at them, but it feels it will be better prepared than last week.
“It’s almost like studying for a math test and taking a science test,” said Ohio State right guard Pat Elflein of playing Hawaii. “We start off designing our offense against a four-down defense, what we’re about to go against. That’ll be back to day one on how we run our stuff. That’ll be good to go against that, a little less stressful mentally.”
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