Ohio State Football: Three keys to beating Indiana
By Ryan Stano
1. The Ohio State football team needs QB pressure
Even though the Buckeyes have improved as a whole on defense, they still struggle to sack the quarterback sometimes. The sack numbers have not been impressive this year. For the amount of talent they have on the defensive line, those numbers should be much higher.
Pressuring Tuttle will be key in this game. Tuttle starts to get happy feet in the pocket if it closes around him too many times. Then he starts to become inaccurate. That’s when he makes mistakes and throws interceptions. Denzel Burke and company will be able to benefit from that.
Getting pressure on Tuttle also helps the young secondary. While they are talented, they are still weak in some areas in the secondary, particularly safety. If Tuttle has enough time to step up and throw deep in the pocket, that could spell trouble for the Ohio State football team.
I would expect the pressure to be above average in this one. They still have some work to do in order to become great, but they aren’t going to do that overnight. Above-average pressure should be enough in this game to help the defense do enough to win.
Like I wrote yesterday, the defense just needs to be average. They don’t need to be anything special because of how good the offense is. Speaking of the offense, the next key to victory in this game has to deal with that side of the ball.