Ohio State Football vs. Youngstown State: Three keys to victory
By Ryan Stano
The Ohio State football team has their home opener this weekend against Youngstown State. The Buckeyes paid the Penguins $800,000 to come to the Shoe and take their beating. It was one of the last things former president Jim Tressel signed off on before he retired.
Ohio State has a lot of things they want to work on offensively in this one. The offensive line needs the most work of any unit on the team. They did not look good in the opener against Indiana. They are replacing three starters from last season.
As far as the game goes on Saturday, there are three keys to victory for the Buckeyes against this vastly inferior opponent. Even if they do just one of these things, they should easily be able to beat Youngstown State. This isn’t an App State/Michigan situation.
The first thing they have to do is set the proper mentality.
1. The Ohio State football team must assert its will
The mentality of a team is important in a game like this. It would be very easy for Ohio State to come into this game expecting to win and not giving a full effort. That would be a mistake. This team needs to be hungry to win every game and not expect to just roll over Youngstown State.
Youngstown State doesn’t have anywhere near the talent the Buckeyes do. But they will come out of the gate hungry to make one of the biggest upsets in college football history. Ohio State needs to match that sort of mentality so they can improve on things they did poorly against IU.
The offensive line needs to come out angry. They were the worst performing unit against IU and they need to get it figured out quickly. Ohio State travels to South Bend to take on Notre Dame in a couple of weeks and that’s a team that can beat the Buckeyes if they don’t have their “A” game.
I expect Justin Frye to get this unit to play better than they did. I expect better blocking in the run game and guys actually being able to get to the second level with their blocks. That was a major problem last weekend for a team that was trying to establish the run.
The next thing that the Buckeyes need to do to ensure a win against the Penguins has to do with the passing game.