COLUMBUS — If you were a top-10 team, Saturday was a good day to put your feet up and watch the teams around you lose.
No. 3 Georgia lost in a stunning upset — the biggest of the 2019 season — at home to a subpar South Carolina team. The double-overtime loss doesn’t end the Bulldogs playoff hopes, but it severely damages the possibility of two SEC teams making it.
LSU’s 42-28 win over seventh-ranked Florida wasn’t shocking, but the Tigers, who jumped from No. 5 to No. 2 in the Associated Press Top 25, sent another message that they’re for real. A date with top-ranked Alabama on Nov. 9 should decide the SEC West.
Three questions after the Ohio State’s off week, ahead of Friday’s trip to Northwestern:
What did the Buckeyes do last week?
According to coach Ryan Day, there was self-evaluation and taking a wide look at both sides of the ball. It’s hard to be too nit-picky about Ohio State after six games, but there are always areas of attention. Both sides of the ball could watch the first quarter of the Michigan State game and then venture to the practice field.
“The big focus is on self-improvement,” Day said last Tuesday. “Each coach is giving tangible things for each of the players to work on. It may be something that’s on the field. It might be something off the field. It might be something academically, something along those lines. But the idea is, what have we done well and what do we need to improve on?”
Who is Ohio State’s chief competition in the Big Ten?
Beating Wisconsin twice sure is looking tough. The Badgers manhandled Michigan State on Saturday, winning 38-0 for their fourth shutout of the season, an unbelievable feat regardless of the competition. Jonathan Taylor ran wild and quarterback Jack Coan had perhaps his finest performance to date. Then there’s Penn State, as the Nittany Lions finally beat a ranked team on the road in the James Franklin era. It was a grind-it-out affair at Iowa, an all-business win that teams need in difficult environments. Ohio State conceivably could go 2-1 against Wisconsin and Penn State if it won the Big Ten championship game. However, that won’t be the mindset in Columbus.
Is Friday night a trap game?
It felt like it before the season, but not so much now. Northwestern has been putrid offensively, scoring 72 points in five games, the second-lowest output in the country — one more point than lowly Rutgers. It’s hard to believe the Wildcats were in the Big Ten title game a year ago. There’s the novelty of playing on the road on Friday night, but don’t confuse it with being vulnerable. Ohio State should cruise to its seventh win of the season. This has the feel of an early non-conference game where the better team forces several turnovers and the scoreboard is lopsided at halftime.
First Published October 14, 2019, 1:26 a.m.
