Ohio State Football: Three keys to victory vs. Wisconsin
By Ryan Stano
The Ohio State football team is taking on Wisconsin this weekend. A night game at Camp Randall Stadium is nothing to take lightly. Even though this Badgers team isn’t as good as some of the past teams, this is still a tricky game for the Buckeyes.
That’s especially true coming off a big win against Penn State. They are now in the driver’s seat of the Big Ten. They have one more big game on their schedule at the end of the year, but this game against Wisconsin isn’t going to be easy because of the environment it’s in.
Ohio State handled the tough crowd at Notre Dame pretty well. Wisconsin is going to be a similar crowd to deal with, especially at night. If Wisconsin wants any chance to win the Big Ten West, they have to win this game. They will give the Buckeyes everything they have.
I have three keys for the Buckeyes to do in order to walk out of Madison with a win. If they can do these three things, they should have no issues remaining undefeated. The first of those keys has to do with Kyle McCord.
1. Kyle McCord must keep finding his favorite target on the Ohio State football team.
We saw against Penn State that no one can stop Marvin Harrison Jr. The entire Nittany Lion defense knew that the Buckeyes were going to try to get him the ball as much as possible, and it still didn’t matter. He carved them up for over 160 yards receiving and a touchdown.
Marvin will be a big part of Ohio State’s game plan again this weekend. The availability of Emeka Egbuka is in question, so Harrison Jr. will get the bulk of the targets again. Kyle McCord needs to just keep throwing the ball his way because he will bring it in.
One thing Harrison Jr. needs to work on is drops. He’s actually dropped a fair amount of easy passes this season, which is very unlike him. He needs to focus on bringing the ball in before he turns upfield to try and do something great after the catch.
I don’t think there is anything Wisconsin can do to slow down Harrison Jr. He is inevitable. As long as he’s out there, Ohio State’s offense becomes a lot harder to stop. The second key for the Buckeyes has to do with the most maligned unit on the team- the offensive line.