Ohio State Football: Buckeyes need to be on upset alert

The Ohio State football team is less than two weeks away from its showdown with Michigan. They better focus on Maryland or else the ‘The Game’ could be meaningless.

The Ohio State football team takes its perfect 10-0 record to just outside the nation’s capital as it takes on the Maryland Terrapins on Saturday afternoon. The Buckeyes’ focus needs to be on that game this week.

It’s hard to ask these 18- to 22-year-old kids not to be looking ahead to the most anticipated game of the season next week when Michigan comes to Columbus. But that is exactly what Ryan Day and the coaching staff need to do as they prepare this week for a solid Maryland team.

Yes, Maryland played like garbage last Saturday in Happy Valley, losing 30-0. But Maryland does have six wins on the season and one of the better quarterbacks that Ohio State will have seen to date in Taulia Tagovailoa.

In nine games, Tagovaila has racked up over 2,100 yards passing and 14 touchdowns with a 68 percent completion percentage. Not many quarterbacks that Ohio State has seen thus far have those types of numbers.

This is also a team that played Michigan really tough in Ann Arbor losing only 34-27, with a real chance to have won that game in the fourth quarter. The Buckeyes need to give the Terrapins the attention they deserve.

Now Ryan Day will come out this week and say all the right things. That they aren’t thinking of Michigan and that they are completely focused on Maryland for Saturday’s game. The truth is that we just won’t know until Saturday at 3:30 when this game kicks off in College Park.

But for the Buckeyes’ sake, and for their national championship dreams, they better be ready to play this team, because Maryland coach Mike Locksley will have his team thinking that this game is their Super Bowl.