COLUMBUS – Now the real fun starts in the Big Ten East Division.
Defending national champion Ohio State (10-0, 6-0 Big Ten, No. 3 CFP ranking) closes the regular season with the Big Ten’s most anticipated games, against Michigan State (9-1, 5-1, No. 9) Saturday in Ohio Stadium (3:30 p.m./ABC) and Michigan Nov. 28 at noon in Ann Arbor.
ESPN’s College GameDay returns to Columbus for the showdown between Ohio State and Michigan State. Rece Davis, Lee Corso, former Buckeye Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, David Pollack and Samantha Ponder will be broadcasting from 9:00 a.m. until noon on the Oval in front of the William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library.
A victory, combined with a Michigan loss at Penn State would clinch the division title for the Buckeyes. Winning out sends them back to the Big Ten championship game and strengthens their playoff seeding. A loss puts a huge dent in their conference and national title hopes.
RELATED: Security will be tight at the Ohio Stadium.
The Buckeyes have stretched the longest active winning streak in the nation to 23 games but critics, even among their own fans, have sniped at the Buckeyes all season for not dominating inferior opponents.
That, says head coach Urban Meyer, is life in the big city.
“There’s probably 10 places like this in America where you keep building a beast and you’ve got to feed it,” he remarked to reporters this week.
The university’s Department of Athletics is reminding fans to be wary of counterfeit tickets and to tickets only from authorized sources: The Ohio State Athletics Ticket Office, Ticketmaster, or the Ohio State TicketExchange.
For Michigan State, a loss at this point ends any chance to win the Big Ten and victory may depend almost entirely on the strength – or weakness — of quarterback Connor Cook’s right arm.
Cook injured his right shoulder in the first half against Maryland last week and didn’t play the second half. Backup Tyler O’Connor did fine while playing about 40 snaps against the Terrapins.
After the game Spartans coach Mark Dantonio said Cook was fine and was expected to play. During the week, he refused to comment.
Against Ohio State, the Spartans need Cook at his best, or close to it, to win in Columbus.
“One of the best quarterbacks in Big Ten history,” was how Meyer assessed Cook. “Someone showed me his winning record. And that’s how you value a quarterback, is do you win games because that’s his job? And he wins almost every game he plays.”
With Cook, Sparty boasts the nation’s 37th-ranked passing offense and it will be up against Ohio State’s top ten-ranked passing and passing efficiency defense.
Any chance that Michigan (8-2, 5-1) has of winning the Big Ten rests with the Buckeyes beating the Spartans – who handed the Wolverines their only conference loss—but the folks in maize and blue won’t be rooting for a Buckeyes win even though it would keep the Wolverines’ title hopes alive — as long as they take care of business at Penn State.