Ohio State Football: An early look into the Michigan State game

When the Ohio State football team travels to East Lansing the Michigan State Spartans could once again hurt the Buckeyes’ chances to make the CFP.

November 10th is a date many Ohio State football fans are penciling in if we want to have a shot at the CFP. With our next two games being against Purdue and Nebraska who are a combined 3-9 in the Big Ten this year, we need to start looking at the Michigan State game.

No matter how good or bad the Spartans are, they always seem to look forward to our matchup and play us very tough.

Yes, last year was a whopping 48-3 beat down in Columbus when Ohio State ran for a total of 352 yards. 162 of those yards were from Mike Weber and 124 from J.K. Dobbins.

Ohio State just dominated the entire game from offense, to defense and on special teams. But lets look back at the 2015 and 2016 games between the Buckeyes and Spartans.

Every Ohio State fan remembers where they were and where they were watching the game when Michigan State crushed our dreams of going back into the CFP for the second straight year in 2015. A game winning 41-yard field goal by Michael Geiger giving Michigan State a 17-14 win in Columbus.

It was a cold and windy night and J.T. Barrett looked like he forgot how to throw the football. Now the play calling was a little skeptical as to why we wouldn’t just feed Zeke the whole game on a windy night like that, but the coaches had different plans.

To this day that loss still haunts some Ohio State fans because of the talent we had on that team and wanting a chance at back-to-back CFP Championships.

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In 2016, the Buckeyes went to East Lansing with the Spartans losing 7 of their last 8 games and only won by 1 point. Once again, J.T. Barrett was inaccurate throwing as he only completed 10 of 22 passes for 86 yards and 1 TD but we rode the Mike Weber train who ran for 111 yards and 1 score.

Ohio State’s defense let LJ Scott do whatever he wanted to and he went for 160 yards on the ground with a TD and had a 64-yard pass that went for the first score of the game. Somehow Ohio State held on for the win with a 2-point conversation stop and an interception within the last 2 minutes of the game to seal the victory.

On November 10th, we don’t which Michigan State team will be showing up to play. Will it be a team that lost to Arizona State and Northwestern? Or a team that defeated Penn State?

We never know when it comes to the Spartans. All we know is it is going to be a dangerous game for the Buckeyes as they attempt to make it back to the College Football Playoff.