The fourth-ranked Buckeyes are headed to Penn State to take on the No. 3 Penn State, then the Bengals will be in action against the Las Vegas Raiders, and of course this is the first week of the OHSAA football playoffs.
Let’s take a closer look at what’s going on this weekend…
Will the real Ohio State football team please stand up?
This has been a weird week for the Buckeyes. They eked out a 21-17 win over 5-3 Nebraska, a result which normally would not present much shame.
Every championship season has such close games — sometimes against much worse opponents — but the optics here weren’t great considering the Cornhuskers had lost 56-7 at Indiana one week earlier.
Ohio State fans were also anxious to see a team with national championship expectations come back and take out some frustrations from their one-point loss at Oregon in their most recent game, but that did not exactly happen.
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To make matters worse, this was another game that featured a weakness that was already known be exploited. The Huskers certainly got the better of things on the line of scrimmage, at least when the Buckeyes had the ball.
Ohio State overcame a near complete lack of ability to run the ball by hitting a handful of explosive plays, but for all intents and purposes this was the worst offensive performance by a Ryan Day team (at least excluding the goofy Cotton Bowl loss to Missouri when the Buckeyes were again short-handed on the offensive line and their starting quarterback had transferred).
On the bright side, the Buckeyes looked much more like the dominant unit they are supposed to be on defense.
What to make of this week?
We will have a full preview on DaytonDailyNews.com later Friday, but this is certainly an interesting matchup on paper.
Ohio State has won 12 of the last 13 games against the Nittany Lions, but arguably no team has played the Buckeyes tougher more times in that timespan.
Both teams have some injury questions entering the game, but it looks like a fairly even match.
The bottom line: Ohio State cannot afford another conference loss if it wants to make the Big Ten Championship Game, and their playoffs hopes would be hanging by a thread as well.
Bengals trying to pick up the pieces (again)
This week’s (fully) professional football schedule has the Cincinnati Bengals hosting the Raiders at Paycor Stadium, where the home team has not won this season.
The Raiders stink, but the Bengals might, too.
Cincinnati is back to trying to stave off extinction after being pummeled last week by the Philadelphia Eagles.
Bad news: Their defense hasn’t been bad, especially against the pass, and the passing game happens to be Cincinnati’s biggest (only?) strength this season. (Curiously the Raiders have been better at preventing yards than points.)
Prep playoffs start tonight
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
As for the first round of the high school football playoffs, well, let’s be honest: Most of the games are not that interesting because expanding the field to 16 teams in each region clearly was a major mistake.
And I’m not just saying that because I am old enough to have played in seasons when only four teams made it (and won a 4-5 game my senior year when the expansion to eight had happened) but rather it is just plainly obvious because teams with only a win or two should not be in contention let alone actually make the postseason.
Nonetheless, there are lots of things to watch with multiple area teams looking primed for a run — maybe all the way to Canton.
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