Ohio State football vs. Iowa: Three keys to victory

3. The Ohio State football team needs to take care of the football

The only way that a team like Iowa can compete with a team like Ohio State is if they win the turnover battle significantly. We saw it back in 2017. Ohio State threw a pick-six on the first possession of the game. After that, they were in chase mode the entire game.

Ohio State has to make sure that they value the football. They don’t turn it over very much, but the pick-six early against Michigan State wasn’t fun to see. They can’t have any of that against Iowa this week because Iowa can actually control the ball a bit with their slowness.

One turnover won’t kill the Buckeyes. What will kill them is three or four of them. It would take a wildly uncharacteristic performance from the offense to give Iowa a shot in this one. Maybe another muffed punt could happen too. I don’t think that’s likely though.

I think Ohio State won’t have issues with turnovers. I expect them to be able to execute the offense at a high level. They still might have one, but I think it will be inconsequential to the final score of the game. I expect a lot of points from one side and not a lot of points from the other.

If Ohio State can do these three things, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be able to walk out of the shoe as a 7-0 football team. Then it will be off to Happy Valley to take on the Nittany Lions.