Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium – Norman, OK
Kickoff: Saturday, 7:30 p.m. ET
Line: Stanford -9.0, Total: 53.0

#3 Ohio State will be hoping to improve to 3-0 with a victory over #14 Oklahoma on Saturday night.

The Buckeyes lost a ton of starters last year, but they’ll continue to be championship contenders for as long as head coach Urban Meyer decides to stick around. Ohio State has played two games this season and the team has looked downright scary in both of them. The Buckeyes opened the season with a 77-10 victory as 64-point favorites over Bowling Green and followed it up with a 48-3 victory over Tulsa as 28-point favorites. Although the offense has been explosive in both games, the defense has been what looks truly elite. The Buckeyes have allowed less than 250 yards of total offense in each of their past two games and will be hoping to find a way to slow down Oklahoma on Saturday. The Sooners defeated Louisiana-Monroe 59-17 as 46-point favorites last week and the team badly needed that after losing 33-23 against Houston in its season opener. Ohio State will be confident coming into this one though, as the Buckeyes are 11-1 ATS as a road favorite of three points or less since 1992. The Sooners, meanwhile, are 7-0 ATS after gaining 525 or more total yards in their previous game over the past two seasons.

The Buckeyes have looked incredible to open up the year and QB J.T. Barrett (498 yards, 6 TD, 1 INT) has been a big part of that. Barrett opened up the season with seven total touchdowns against Bowling Green and he came back and had two rushing touchdowns against Tulsa. In addition to Barrett’s damage in the running game, RB Mike Weber (228 yards, 1 TD) did some of his own. The freshman added 92 yards and a touchdown in that game and will now be hoping to take some pressure off of Barrett against Oklahoma in this one. The Buckeyes are the youngest team in the nation, so they’ll need some easy chunk yards on the ground in order to build confidence early in this big matchup. Defensively, Ohio State has been as good as anybody in the country to start the year. Stopping Mayfield and Co. will, however, be a lot tougher than keeping Bowling Green and Tulsa in check. These young Ohio State defensive backs are going to need to be disciplined on Saturday, as the Sooners will make them pay for any mistakes they make when defending the pass.

Oklahoma backup QB Austin Kendall was quoted saying that Baker Mayfield (567 yards, 5 TD, 0 INT) is going to “light up” Ohio State this weekend and Mayfield is certainly hoping that is the case. Mayfield took the Houston loss harder than anybody else on this Oklahoma team and knows that he needs a victory over the Buckeyes to make up for that one. It’d help Mayfield if RB Samaje Perine (89 yards, 2 TD) can get himself going in this one. Perine is a very talented back, but he has only 16 carries on the season. Oklahoma needs to get him the ball more often, but he also must find a way to stay healthy. Perine is always getting banged up and the team needs him to be running at 100% in games like these. Defensively, Oklahoma must find a way to prepare for Barrett’s ability to beat them through the air and on the ground. Houston’s Greg Ward Jr. was very similar in that regard and Oklahoma was not ready for that challenge.