Indiana found the big plays it needed to stay unbeaten last Saturday. Against Ohio State, can the Hoosiers build something steadier around them? The No. 5 Hoosiers are 6-0, while the No. 4 Buckeyes arrive at 5-1 with a dangerous passing combination in Julian Sayin and Jeremiah Smith. Indiana’s challenge is to move the ball consistently enough that it doesn’t need another late rescue to keep pace with Ohio State’s explosive plays.
Indiana escaped Nebraska, but the running game needs more
Indiana rallied to beat Nebraska 20-17 after trailing 17-6 early in the fourth quarter. Josh Hoover found Nick Marsh for touchdowns of 75 and 44 yards, with the second coming on fourth-and-1. Marsh finished with six catches for 187 yards, giving the Hoosiers a way out of a game in which their usual ground production disappeared.
Indiana rushed for just 65 yards and finished with 328 total yards, both season lows. Turbo Richard and Lee Beebe Jr. combined for 41 rushing yards on 17 carries. The comeback showed how quickly Hoover and Marsh can change a game, but it also left a clear question for this week: can Indiana sustain more drives rather than needing another pair of long touchdown passes?
Our rushing and passing projections put Indiana at roughly 150 rushing yards and 240 passing yards. That’s a much healthier ground contribution than it managed at Nebraska, while still leaving an important role for Hoover. The Hoosiers don’t need to abandon the big play; getting more from the run would give them another route to points.
Ohio State has the weapons—and some cleanup work
Smith scored on his first two touches in Ohio State’s 45-16 win over Maryland, finishing with four catches for 93 yards. Sayin threw four touchdown passes, and Bo Jackson added two rushing touchdowns. That’s a difficult collection of threats for Indiana to handle, even when Smith isn’t piling up catches.
The Buckeyes also gave Maryland openings. Four defensive penalties helped the Terrapins on a touchdown drive, and a deflected Sayin pass became a 51-yard interception return for a score. Ohio State had enough production to absorb those mistakes last week. In a tighter matchup, those are expensive ways to give an opponent chances.
We project about 285 passing yards for Ohio State and 125 rushing yards. That gives the Buckeyes the larger expected passing output, while Indiana has the higher rushing projection. The contrast makes Indiana’s ability to sustain its ground game especially interesting: Ohio State has already shown how quickly Smith can turn a short completion into a touchdown.
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How that fits the spread and total
The DraftKings spread makes Ohio State a 3.5-point favorite. Indiana’s unbeaten record hasn’t translated into consistent results against the spread: opponents covered in five of its six games this season, producing a historical profit of 3.58 units on flat one-unit bets. Those games all had Indiana favored, though. Taking points against Ohio State is a different assignment, so the earlier misses need that context.
The 51.5-point total brings the same matchup tension into focus. Both teams showed a quick-strike passing threat last Saturday, which gives scoring a way to accelerate even when the ground game stalls. But Indiana’s difficulty sustaining its rushing production is a meaningful counterweight. Ohio State’s two road games this season—a 24-23 loss at Texas and a 31-14 win at Iowa—also offer a more restrained scoring picture than its 45-point performance against Maryland.
Those road results aren’t the whole scoring story: four of Ohio State’s six games this season went Over their posted totals, while Indiana split its six games evenly between Overs and Unders. At 51.5, the quick-strike threat deserves real weight, but Indiana’s uneven rushing performance leaves uncertainty about how reliably it can contribute sustained scoring drives.
Ohio State’s passing production and Smith’s ability to turn short catches into touchdowns give the Buckeyes a clear threat. Indiana has shown it can answer with explosive passes of its own, but a rushing rebound would make that answer less dependent on a handful of plays. For the spread, that would give the Hoosiers a steadier way to stay competitive; for the total, it would add sustained scoring opportunities alongside the quick strikes. The most useful test is whether Indiana can make its ground game a dependable part of the offense again—not simply whether it can protect an unbeaten record.
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