The Ohio State football program has been playing like the best team in the country through the first four games of the season. Coming off a solid win over Washington, they now welcome Minnesota to the Shoe for the first night game that the Buckeyes will play in during Big Ten play.
Minnesota is hoping to pull off a massive upset on the road, although they are much less talented compared to what the Ohio State Buckeyes have on the roster. Their lone loss came at California, but this will be by far the best team they have played so far.
According to DraftKings, the Buckeyes are 23.5-point favorites. That's a much larger spread than they had last week against the Huskies, when they were just single-digit favorites. Ohio State easily covered that spread. Will they be able to cover again this week?
Ohio State football vs Minnesota final predictions
Julian Sayin is due for a big game. He hasn't had a great start to the season, although he's been plenty good enough to win games. He's going to be really good at some point, and he's shown flashes of that against both Grambling State and Ohio.
This is a great opportunity for the Buckeyes to open up the playbook and allow Sayin to rip it against the Golden Gophers. He's going to have over 300 passing yards and three touchdowns in this game. The difference is that he won't turn the ball over as he did against the Tigers and the Bobcats.
The defense is going to be as stingy as they have been all year, not letting the Golden Gophers get anything going. It would be shocking if this were the first game that they allowed a team to reach double-digits. The Buckeyes shouldn't have any issues winning this game.
Prediction: Ohio State 45 Minnesota 6
Playing this game at home at night gives the Buckeyes too much of an advantage for P.J. Fleck's team to have a shot at winning. Ohio State is just too good. This should be another blowout win before facing a real test next weekend against the Fighting Illini.