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This game was going to be close BEFORE this loss of McLaughlin.    Indiana leads the nation in TFL.  They are better than people are giving credit for. 
I am actually picking Indiana now.  Hope to be wrong.

Don't get me wrong, this is the best IU team they have ever fielded. They used the portal to bring in 31 new players including 16 starters. They have dominated their competition, they are really, really good. 

But ... Talent-Wise, I think OSU is significantly more talented. The game is in Ohio Stadium. Until the O-line injury, all the indicators, including Vegas, were speaking to a 2-score OSU win.

I'm unsure why the line didn't move after the injury was announced. But I am a lot more concerned about OSU's performance against IMHO the 4th best team in the conference. 

Way back in the day, i was always drawn to your takes because our younger years all over us had more confidence and chest beating takes on our own teams, yet you were a little more in the center. Nowadays, your takes make me laugh because you are far too pessimistic with your Buckeyes. It's probably a smart mindset because they surprise you with positive outcomes more often, but so often I chuckle how down you are on a really good team.

Not down on them.  I think they are a really good team. Can probably hang with any team. 

But as you pointed out in a different post- their defense- statistically is fantastic.  #2 in stop rate. 
They can be unimpressive at times- bending but not breaking.  Nowhere did that hurt them more than Oregon.    Indiana runs a very similar offense.  Super accurate QB, very solid group. Of WRs who are disciplined in their routes. 

On the other side of the ball, there are reasons why Indiana leads the nation in both sacks and TFLs.  They have played, and done well against offensive lines better than the patchwork- inexperienced one OSU will show them.  The guy who was the glue, on making the calls and directing traffic is a huge loss. 

Put that all together and this becomes a game of “ third downs.”  Who can convert them better, and who can get their defense off the field better.

I just think there is a better than 50/50 chance that will be the Hoosiers.  Don’t fell strongly- just a best guess. 

this is their first chance to prove it

Aside from the obvious Nebraska differential, how have they fared against common opponents? 

 

Not down on them.  I think they are a really good team. Can probably hang with any team. 

But as you pointed out in a different post- their defense- statistically is fantastic.  #2 in stop rate. 
They can be unimpressive at times- bending but not breaking.  Nowhere did that hurt them more than Oregon.    Indiana runs a very similar offense.  Super accurate QB, very solid group. Of WRs who are disciplined in their routes. 

On the other side of the ball, there are reasons why Indiana leads the nation in both sacks and TFLs.  They have played, and done well against offensive lines better than the patchwork- inexperienced one OSU will show them.  The guy who was the glue, on making the calls and directing traffic is a huge loss. 

Put that all together and this becomes a game of “ third downs.”  Who can convert them better, and who can get their defense off the field better.

I just think there is a better than 50/50 chance that will be the Hoosiers.  Don’t fell strongly- just a best guess.

As MB pointed out, Indiana has faced this caliber of talent yet so I'm not sure if it carries through to this weekend. I know they will not face another WR core anything near what they will face this weekend so it will certainly be a true test. Indiana has actually been an excited team to follow this year for a lot of reasons, most specifically because it's been a while since they have been even remotely competitive and I always enjoy an underdog story. I want this to be a great game, but i think the talent gap is pretty significant. The only thing that could drastically change the outcome is if OSU's O-line truly struggles.. Then i think it's a coin flip.

Aside from the obvious Nebraska differential, how have they fared against common opponents?

Here are the two columns from my table:

So, sequentially:
Vs Nebraska:  IU was 45 points better.  

Vs MSU:  IU was 6 points better.  

Vs NU:  tOSU was 7 points better.  

The Nebraska comparison is the one that obviously looks bad for Ohio State.  I'll come back to that.  The difference vs MSU is irrelevant to me.  Both teams won by a LOT.  If you want to get into specifics, I honestly think that tOSU's win over MSU was more impressive.  I judge these things more based on time than final margin.  What I mean is "at what point in the game was it effectively over?":

• Ohio State scored a TD just before halftime to take a 24-7 lead.  
• IU didn't put MSU away until scoring a TD with 11:39 to go in the 3rd quarter to make it 30-10.  

Indiana scored 26 second half points against MSU while Ohio State only scored 14.  Part of the reason, I would argue, is that IU needed to, tOSU didn't.  Ohio State went into halftime up 24-7 and scored two second half TD's to end up winning 38-7.  Indiana went into halftime up 11 at 21-10, got a safety early in the third quarter to make it 23-10 (still a two-score game) and expanded their lead to 20 (three scores) later.  

Not a big difference, but I think Ohio State effectively ended MSU's chances about six minutes sooner.  

Ohio State's win over Northwestern was, IMHO, MUCH more impressive.  Against the Wildcats:
Ohio State gave up an early TD then rattled off 31 unanswered points to win 31-7.  The Buckeyes led by two scores (21-7) at the half and pushed it to three scores (28-7) early in the third quarter then kicked a FG late in the third to make it 31-7.  

Indiana had a hard-fought back-and-forth game in which they led 17-10 at the half and 24-17 at the end of the third quarter.  Northwestern pulled within three points midway through the fourth quarter (recall that tOSU led by 24 at that point in the game) and IU pulled away with two late TD's to win by 17.  

I rate it as:

• vs Nebraska, IU was VASTLY more impressive.  
• vs MSU, tOSU was somewhat more impressive.  
• vs NU, tOSU was substantially more impressive.  

Back to the Nebraska game, as promised:
The problem with reading too much into it is that Nebraska is CLEARLY IU's most and tOSU's least impressive performance so far this year.  

Refer to the table above:  Iowa is a MUCH better team than Nebraska, Ohio State beat them by 31.  MSU and NU are comparable to Nebraska, Ohio State beat them by 31 and 24 respectively.  The Buckeyes should have smashed the Cornhuskers and just . . . didn't.  

Indiana beat MSU and NU by 37 and 17 respectively.  Against teams definitively better than UNL, the Hoosiers beat UWash by 14 and Mich by 5.  So they should have beaten UNL by something like 25 and they whipped them by damn near 50.  

The problem is that if you judge a team by their best game, we are all National Champions.  If you judge teams by their worst game well Bama lost to Vandy and Texas looked like crap against Georgia.  

What makes me think that Ohio State will run away with this is that the one-and-only time that Indiana faced high-end talent they barely escaped the Wolverines at home and despite the fact that Michigan is a one-dimensional cluster that can't score.  

 Indiana has actually been an excited team to follow this year for a lot of reasons,if OSU's O-line truly struggles. Then i think it's a coin flip.

Coin flip it is,this line was decent starting the season but losing the two best starters is going to be problematic