By MITCH STACY AP Sports Writer, and staff
COLUMBUS (AP) — After an exhilarating, season-opening win over now-No. 8 Notre Dame, No. 3 Ohio State has a different challenge: get pumped up to play against an major underdog in Week 2, Arkansas State from the Sunbelt Conference.
(3) Ohio St. (1-0) vs. Arkansas State (1-0); Ohio Stadium, Columbus OH (Noon/BTN)
STATUS UPDATE: The playing statuses of WR’s Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Julian Fleming were listed as a game-time decision.
The Buckeyes got a nailbiting 21-10 victory over the Irish before a television audience of 10.5 million last Saturday night.
But this week, Ohio State has to be careful not to slip into last season’s habit of looking past some teams, quarterback C.J. Stroud said.
“I feel like it was a problem to get rid of,” said Stroud, a favorite to win the Heisman Trophy. “So we maybe played down our competition at times, and me personally that’s not something I never want to do. You always want to go out there and prove that you can dominate anybody when you step on to the field.”
The Red Wolves of Jonesboro, Arkansas, are feeling good about themselves after blowing out FCS squad Grambling State in last week’s opener, even if they’re a six-touchdown underdog according to FanDuel Sportsbook.
Coach Butch Jones, the former Tennessee coach who’s been around big-time college football for years, knows what he’s walking into.
“Playing an opponent like Ohio State, your margin of error is very slim,” Jones said. “Every mistake you make is magnified. We may have been able to get away with some things against Grambling, where against Ohio State. it’ll be catastrophic.”
Jones wants to emerge from the game with his team’s health and morale intact. Arkansas STate will also take home a big check for traveling to Columbus to be a pre-Big Ten appetizer for the Buckeyes.
Red Wolves fifth-year defensive tackle TW Ayers said he just wants to see what all the fuss is about.
“It’s one of the few times every year you get a chance to kind of compare yourself and see where you are, just compared to all these guys that you see one on TV and you hear all the talk about — all these big-name guys who get all the media attention,” Ayers said. “So I think a lot of guys look forward to (nonconference games) every year to stack themselves up against them and have that opportunity to put their name on the map.”