by Following a bye week, the Ohio State football team will face Marshall University on Saturday. The Thundering Herd will be the final non-conference opponent before the Buckeyes before conference play begins the next week.
Similarly to Akron and Western Michigan, Ohio State should have absolutely zero problems handling Marshall on their home field. However, the Thundering Herd looks to be among the better of the smaller FBS teams in college football. In Week 1, Marshall absolutely dominated Stony Brook, 45-3, while in Week 2, they were defeated on the road by Virginia Tech. 31-14. While the score looks relatively lopsided, the game was close throughout the first three quarters and while their record might not show it, Virginia Tech was projected to be one of the better teams in the ACC this year. Just like the Buckeyes, Marshall was off in Week 3.
The starting quarterback for the Thundering Herd is Stone Earle, who is in his first year with the program. After two seasons at North Texas where he struggled to find playing time, Earle now has the reins of the Marshall offense and has had decent success. This season, he has 228 yards with three touchdowns and one interception, but stats don’t tell the whole story. Because of the blowout against Stony Brook, Earle only played a little into the second half, but in all fairness, he struggled mightily a week later against Virginia Tech. Things won’t get any easier though because perhaps the best defense in all of the sport will be bearing down on him in a few days.
Also for the Thundering Herd, junior running back A.J. Turner has gotten off to an explosive start, with 222 rushing yards on just 14 carries. Marshall’s leading receiver is Christian Fitzpatrick, who has eight receptions for 170 yards and two touchdowns on the year. Fitzpatrick is no stranger to the Buckeyes, as the fifth-year senior is a two time transfer, starting his career at Louisville before playing three seasons at Michigan State. The Spartans went 0-3 vs. Ohio State in that span, and Fitzpatrick had a total of three catches for 25 yards between the three contests.
For the Buckeyes to have a successful week they need to continue to learn. In Week 1, Ohio State got off to a slightly troublingly slow start against Akron but they learned their lesson and pummeled Western Michigan right out of the gates in Week 2. Quarterback Will Howard has looked as good as one could have hoped, the same with freshman wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, but look for offensive coordinator Chip Kelly and the coaching staff to try and get receivers Emeka Egbuka and Carnell Tate more involved in the offense. With all the hype around Smith, we seem to have forgotten about Egbuka and Tate, who are both older and will both surely be needed when higher levels of competition come around. Egbuka, a projected first round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, and Tate, a former five-star prospect, need to see more targets come their way and this is the game to work on that.
Not to overlook the Thundering Herd, but this is the final warm-up game. In this new era of college football, winning a conference championship is incredibly valuable in playoff seeding, so every Big Ten game is of paramount importance. The Buckeyes can’t afford to treat this game as a walkthrough, because a mistake against a worthier opponent could quickly derail their season.
