Ohio State Football: The one way Minnesota can beat OSU

No one has more talent in the Big Ten than the Ohio State football team, but talent alone doesn’t win you games. There is one way that Minnesota can stun the Buckeyes in the opener next week.

The Ohio State football team is one of the most talented squads in the entire country. Their offense should be deadly, their defensive line is perhaps the scariest line in all of college football, and they have an excellent coach leading the way.

Even with all of that, the Buckeyes could still find a way to lose the opener at Minnesota. While I don’t think it’s likely at all, there is a roadmap for the Golden Gophers to beat the Buckeyes next Thursday and shock the world. It revolves around their passing game.

Alabama showed the blueprint on how to beat this Ohio State defense. If you can run zone-beating routes in the passing game, such as corner routes, wheel routes, and others, then the Buckeyes have issues defending that. That’s exactly what happened in January.

Now the Buckeyes have a lot of new faces in the back seven of the defense. Their entire linebacking corp will be new and there will be some new faces in the secondary too. That’s why Minnesota has a chance with an experienced quarterback like Tanner Morgan. Morgan knows what to do.

The inexperience on the backend of the defense gives Minnesota a shot to stay in this game. Of course, they would have to slow down Ohio State’s absurdly good offense as well. But Morgan has the firepower to put up some big numbers and could put some points up on the board.

Am I predicting this to happen? No. I think Ryan Day will have his team very ready for this game and I would be shocked if this game wasn’t a blowout victory for the Bucks. But if you’re looking for a reason why Ohio State could lose this game, there it is.

We’ll have much more on this game next week as we get closer and closer to the season finally starting!