Ohio State football: Three keys to beating Toledo
By Ryan Stano
The Ohio State football team takes on Toledo on Saturday night in Week 3 of their season. We’ll get to see how the Buckeyes deal with playing an inferior opponent in primetime, as the game starts at 7 pm. It’s an interesting scenario for sure for the Buckeyes.
Toledo comes in as the only in-state opponent the Buckeyes will face this season. They also come in 2-0 with a top-five defense. After watching Marshall take down Notre Dame and Appalachian State beat Texas A&M, they have to come in with confidence they can pull the upset.
Ohio State will come in healthier than they’ve been all season as they will be getting Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Julian Fleming back on offense, as well as Jordan Hancock back on defense. It’s the first time they’ve been almost completely healthy this year.
There are three keys for the Buckeyes to avoid being an upset victim of epic proportions. If they execute all of these keys, they should walk away with a blowout win right before Big Ten play starts. If they don’t the Rockets might make things interesting.
The first key deals with how Ohio State combats that top-five defense.
The Ohio State football team needs to be balanced on offense.
So far this season, the Ohio State football team has been focused on moving the ball through the air. They have tried to get C.J. Stroud going early and often with the passing game, not opting to run the ball until the second half. In the case of the season-opener, they really didn’t start running until the fourth quarter.
That has to change against Toledo. The Buckeyes have to keep them on their toes by being balanced with both the run and the pass. We’ve talked about how the Buckeyes need to give more carries to the running backs and let them wear down teams’ defensive fronts.
Establishing the run early opens up the play-action pass, which should be much more effective now that Smith-Njigba will be playing. I still expect Stroud to whip the ball around a lot on Saturday night, but it needs to be at a less frequent clip early in the game.
The second key to a victory for the Buckeyes deals with something they’ve struggled to do in the first two games this season.