Ohio State football: 5 reasons OSU stays undefeated, demolishes Minnesota

4. Dwayne Haskins will feast

Offensively, the Buckeyes were spectacular last weekend.

Each facet of the game was controlled by the offense’s uncanny ability to keep drives moving down the field. Moving the chains was the theme of the game against the Hoosiers as they consistently converted on third and fourth down. It’s hard not to do that though considering the Buckeyes have some of the best running backs, receivers, and one of the best quarterbacks in the country.

The Buckeyes were magnificent in the passing game from a production standpoint. Haskins six touchdowns to four different receivers. Other than the mistakes that were made with the interceptions, he still threw for an unbelievable stat line. Haskins had 455 yards passing and six touchdowns.

Most of the mistakes that happened weren’t completely at the fault of Haskins, though.

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He was hit while throwing during one of his picks and under pressure during the other. In fact, a majority of the interceptions he’s thrown this season were due to miscues from the receivers running the wrong way/dropping the ball or he was hit while throwing.

The run game did a fairly good job last weekend as well. However, it was rather inefficient as the team averaged just 3.2 yards per carry overall. One of the major contributing factors to this is that Haskins seemed to have rushed more than he ever has against the Hoosiers. On several occasions, seven to be exact, Haskins carried the ball. This was odd as he hasn’t done that almost at all this season. He averaged just one yard per carry as he totaled seven yards.

J.K. Dobbins and Weber were kept under wraps for the entirety of this game. Dobbins averaged just 3.2 yards per carry and Weber averaged a little over five. Nobody could get loose as they had a hard time finding open space. One thing the Hoosiers did do well was their whole defense ran to the ball after first contact every play. They managed to hold the Buckeyes to fewer explosive plays in the open field due to that strategy. The Bucks ran the ball more than they passed it which makes the passing game look even more impressive.

The Gophers have been fairly good on defense as a whole this season as they rank 15th in the country in yards allowed per game. However, this is largely due to them not playing anybody with a competent offense. The best team they’ve played so far is Iowa who they just let up 48 points to. In the game before that match up, the Gophers let up 42 points to Maryland.

This game will be a good opportunity for the Buckeyes to clean up their mistakes completely and have a clean game. The Gophers aren’t threatening in any way on defense which should allow for the Buckeyes to get what they want. There are bigger fish to fry but this game remains meaningful strictly for experience. Expect the Buckeyes to clean up their act against the Gophers this weekend.