No. 2 Penn State vs. No. 6 Ohio State.
A match-up so big that…
…three networks are broadcasting their pre-game shows live from The Horseshoe on Saturday.
ESPN’s GameDay will set up between St. John Arena and Ohio Stadium. Big Ten Network’s “BTN Tailgate” will be outside the stadium at the SE corner. And FOX’s” College Football Pregame Show” — because FOX is broadcasting the game nationally — will be inside the stadium.
…the visiting team (7-0 in 2017) is on a huge roll. But then so is the home team (6-1).
Over its past 17 games, Penn State has a 16-1 record and a Big Ten title, climbing from unranked in the AP poll to its current second position. Since Week Three of the 2014 season, Ohio State is 41-4, and has won both a Big Ten title and a national championship.
…the home team coach has a pair of nearly unprecedented amazing one-loss stretches.
Urban Meyer is 21-1 as a head coach in games played after a bye week, including 7-0 at Ohio State. The one loss came in 2001 when he was at Bowling Green and BG fell 24-21 to Miami (Ohio), whose quarterback was a guy by the name of Ben Roethlisberger. Since then, Urban is 20-0 following bye weeks, with back-to-work wins over No. 4 Georgia, No. 4 LSU, No. 8 Kentucky, No. 23 Florida State and No. 25 Georgia.
Since arriving at Ohio State in 2012, Meyer is 20-1 in the month of October (and 19-1 in November.) Among those October victories are 35-22, 63-14, 31-24 (OT) and 38-10 victories over Penn State.
…the one Urban Ohio State October loss? Yeah: 24-21 to Penn State last Oct. 22 in Beaver Stadium.
Watch Grant Haley’s now-legendary scoop-and-score here.
…Meyer’s streaks don’t impress the opposing offensive left tackle.
On Tuesday, I engaged in this little Q&A with Penn State’s Ryan Bates, who had been offered by Ohio State in high school but never met Meyer. (Thusly, Bates pancaked me. Twice.)
Question: What’s your impression from afar of Urban Meyer?
Bates: I don’t know the guy. I can’t tell you. I don’t know him. I can’t tell you my impression. He’s a football coach, I know that. He coaches for Ohio State. That’s what I know about him.
Question: What if I told you that he was 21-1 after bye weeks?
Bates: I couldn’t care less. Honestly, I mean we’re going to play how we play and I’m confident in our team and how we play versus how they play.
…the paychecks of the opposing coaches are into the five figures — per day.
According to a recent USA Today review of college football head coaches’ salaries, Meyer has a base pay of $6.43 million, No. 4 in the country. James Franklin comes in at No. 12, with a base of $4.6 million. That’s per year.
For a single day’s pay (say on Saturday, when their teams meet), dividing the base by 365, that amounts to $17,620 for Meyer and $12,603 for Franklin. Again, that’s per day.
…the division they play in, the Big Ten East (with Michigan and Michigan State), may be the toughest in all of college football.
Read Franklin’s response this week to my sentiment regarding exactly that, paying particular attention to his last sentence. (Which shows that he agrees.)
“I don’t ever like to say things that are definitive like this, because I haven’t gone out and studied it,” Franklin said. Penn State strength and conditioning “coach Galt sometimes will say that; he’ll say, ‘We got the strongest offensive line in the country.’ Or he’ll make statements like that and I’m like, ‘Whoa, where are you getting this data from?’ He just says, ‘Well, I believe it.’ Which is great and I want us to feel that way and to believe that.
“I have worked in a lot of different conferences and I think we’re part of the discussion. I think that you can’t have a discussion without us being a part of that discussion, obviously — our side, with Penn State and Michigan State and Michigan and Ohio State all on the same side of the conference. It’s up there. But obviously someone that has SEC ties is going to feel different about that or someone who has ACC ties is going to feel a different way, or the PAC-12 or Big-12, there’s going to be an argument made.
“I think for the people that study the game nationally, without being biased, we’re going to be a part of every single one of those debates and conversations — and I think that’s all really you care about.
“I would be making that argument.”
…the Buckeyes’ hometown paper will have a media outlet-high eight reporters in the Ohio Stadium press box on Saturday afternoon.
That would be the Columbus Dispatch. Close behind is the Ohio State University social media team, with seven; 247Sports, with six; ESPN, with five (Lee Corso, Rob Parker, David Pollack, Marty Smith and Jonathan Whyley); and StateCollege.com, with two (OK, not that close behind).
…the two teams have some kind of national No. 1 and 2 rankings going on.
Penn State’s defense is No. 1 in the nation in fewest points allowed per game (9.6), while holding a first/third quarter scoring advantage of 162-3 and forcing opponents into the lowest passing efficiency in the country (94.02; Ohio State QB J.T Barrett is fourth-best in the nation in that category, at 173.8). Overall, Penn State is No. 2 in turnover margin, at plus-12. On top of that, Saquon Barkley is No. 1 in the country in all-purpose yardage, at 211.1 yards per game.
Powered by Barrett, who has thrown 21 touchdown passes and just one interception in 2017, the Ohio State offense is No. 2 in first downs (209; PSU has 154) and No. 2 in points per game (47.3; PSU averages 40.0). Individually, Barrett is No. 2 in points responsible per game — passing and running (22.6).
…former head coaches on both sides of the ball are now key assistants.
Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano, a former defensive back at Bucknell and an assistant coach at Penn State from 1990-95, was head coach at both Rutgers (68-67) and in the NFL, with Tampa Bay (11-21). Buckeye offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson, who won the Broyles Award as an O-coordinator at Oklahoma, was the head coach at Indiana from 2011-16, with a 26-47 record. (And lest we forget Buckeye defensive line/assistant head coach Larry Johnson Sr., the former longtime PSU D-line coach, who was interim HC at Penn State for a cup of coffee between Bill O’Brien and James Franklin in January 2014).
By now, you know that Penn State offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead refined his RPO as head coach at Fordham, going 38-13 from 2012-15. But did you know that Franklin has another former head coach on his staff? His name is Larry Lewis, and he was the head coach at Idaho State (40-49) when Franklin was the wide receivers coach there in 1999, and he coached with Franklin at Washington State in 1998, when Franklin was a GA and Lewis was the assistant head coach and special teams coach. Lewis is a special teams consultant for Penn State in 2017.
There’s value in all that, Franklin said this week.
“There’s so much value in experience and having more experienced guys in your room who have coached on both sides of the ball or been head coaches before or coached in the NFL or major college football or have coached at Ohio State in that venue — experience counts,” Franklin said. “Experience matters. And those guys bring a lot of it.”
…the former head coaches at Ohio State adjust to Meyer, not vice versa.
“Ohio State kind of has a model,” Franklin said this week. “And although they go out and hire new personnel they’re the same defense. They’re not running the defense that Greg Schiano ran when he was at Rutgers. It’s a different scheme. Now, are there elements? Yes. Are they running Kevin Wilson’s offense from Indiana? I think it’s Ohio State and it’s some Indiana influence. It looks to me as if at Ohio State, Urban has a system. This is what they do on offense, this is what they do on defense and this is what they do on special teams. And whoever they hire, is going to run some form of that system. That’s what happens.
“Kevin Wilson is one of the better coordinators in the country. When he first got there this year and started calling plays, it took some time, because he wasn’t running his own thing and they had to figure that out. And that’s why you see them hitting on all cylinders. That’s just my opinion; that’s what it looks like.”
…the 63-14 Meyer pasted on Penn State in The Horseshoe in 2013, when he called timeout to challenge a spot in a game where the Buckeyes led 42-7 at the half, seems like a distant memory.
In the days leading up to that Oct. 26, 2013, game, O’Brien allowed that on the football field, Ohio State was on a pedestal high above Penn State.
“Urban’s up here,” said O’Brien in a private and salient moment, raising his right hand to above his forehead.
“And the rest,” the Penn State coach continued, his left hand more than a foot lower, “are down here.”
Franklin has closed that gap in an amazingly short time.
…nothing seems bigger than Saturday’s game. (Until Sunday arrives.)
Before Super Bowl VI, won 24-3 by Dallas over Miami, taciturn Cowboy running back Duane Thomas was asked if the Super Bowl was the ultimate game.
“If it’s the ultimate game,” Thomas replied, “how come they’re playing it again next year?”
