The Ohio State football team is back from its second bye week as it gets ready to host Penn State. Before the season started, this matchup was circled as one of the biggest matchups in all of college football. With James Franklin's firing, this has now just become a speed bump for the Buckeyes.
Penn State has now lost four straight games and will have Terry Smith leading the team as they head into Columbus. It is also the first time that Jim Knowles will be facing the Ohio State Buckeyes since he left last winter to become the highest-paid defensive coordinator in the country.
Ryan Day made it pretty clear that he and Knowles were not friends. He wants to win this game by as many points as possible, and so does the Buckeyes' defense after Knowles left them. According to Vegas, that seems fairly likely.
Final odds for and final prediction for Ohio State football vs. Penn State
According to DraftKings, the Buckeyes are favored by 18.5 points at home. The over/under for the game is 45.5. Ohio State has done a remarkable job of covering so far this season, covering in every game thus far. Day is likely going to let Julian Sayin throw the ball around.
Knowles' defense has had issues stopping teams from scoring points and racking up yards. The Buckeyes finally opened up the offense against the Badgers a couple of weeks ago in what was their best total offensive effort to date. That will give them confidence to do it again against the Nittany Lions.
Final prediction: Ohio State 45 Penn State 6
The Nittany Lions are playing a backup quarterback against the best defense in the country. Ethan Grunkemeyer won't be the same kind of force that Drew Allar was, or at least hyped up to be. His first start didn't go well at Iowa last week, as he threw two interceptions and no touchdowns.
Grunkemeyer is going to be no match for an even better defense in a more hostile environment. This defense is going to be out for blood to show that Knowles made the wrong decision to leave. It would be shocking if Penn State scored a touchdown in this one.
On the flip side, Ohio State's offense is going to be able to do pretty much whatever it wants as long as it keeps the starters in. It could get really ugly very quickly in the first half of this one.