Ohio State vs USC Odds Favor Buckeyes on Saturday

Ohio State walks into the Coliseum on Saturday night as a 69% favorite in Polymarket’s October 29 snapshot, and the Buckeyes earned that number without knowing who will play quarterback. Ohio State vs USC kicks off at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC, and it is the first meeting between the two programs as Big Ten opponents.

The Buckeyes are 6-1 and 4-0 in the Big Ten, riding a five-game winning streak into the trip. Julian Sayin, the Heisman finalist who started for Ohio State last season, hurt his throwing arm in the 19-15 win at Indiana.

Ohio State coach Ryan Day said the Buckeyes plan to play without him for the rest of the year, taking 2,007 passing yards and 19 touchdown passes out of the lineup.

Day still hasn’t named a starting quarterback, so USC has to prepare for two of them. Luke Fahey, a true freshman from Mission Viejo, California, is 9-of-13 for 203 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions, while Tavien St. Clair is 5-of-7 for 52 yards with one touchdown and one interception.

Neither has started a college game, though Fahey won the backup job in preseason camp and played the final three drives at Indiana, going 0-for-2 through the air.

“Both quarterbacks practiced well last week, which was good. It was good energy,” Day said Tuesday. “Like I said before, Luke was ahead of Tavien going into the Indiana game. So we’ll kind of see how the next couple days go.”

Jeremiah Smith gives the new quarterback a safety net

For starters, whoever takes the first snap gets to throw to Jeremiah Smith, who has 52 catches for 984 yards and 12 touchdowns through seven games. Sayin’s biggest throw at Indiana was a 38-yard touchdown to Smith on fourth-and-1, and the simplest plan for Ohio State vs USC is to keep feeding Smith quick, easy throws.

Granted, the running game has not made life easy for anybody. Ohio State ran for 78 yards against Indiana, and running back Bo Jackson has 516 yards on 107 carries, about 4.8 yards per attempt. A first-time starter on the road needs a run game to lean on, and the Buckeyes had an open week to work on one.

On the flip side, USC’s defense has not scared many people this season. The Trojans allow 25 points and 331 yards per game, and safety Kennedy Urlacher leads the team with three sacks. USC’s best defensive plan is probably pressure, because two quarterbacks who have combined for 20 college passes will feel every extra rusher.

USC needs its offense back

USC is 6-2 and 3-2 in the Big Ten, and its three league wins came against teams with a combined 3-10 conference record. Meanwhile, the Trojans average nearly 33 points per game, and quarterback Jayden Maiava has thrown for more than 2,300 yards with 19 touchdowns and five interceptions.

Wisconsin shut that offense down last Saturday, holding USC to minus-17 rushing yards on 25 carries in a 24-7 win. Lincoln Riley, the USC coach, had never seen one of his teams score fewer points since he became a head coach at Oklahoma in 2017.

Maiava completed 31 of 50 passes for 258 yards with two interceptions once the run game disappeared. Riley said after the game that he still trusts his team to bounce back. “When we’re at our best, we can beat anybody,” Riley said.

Plus, Riley has to fix that run game against a defense that held Indiana, the defending national champion, to 15 points in Bloomington. USC has not shown it can win a big game when Maiava has to throw 50 times.

Ohio State vs USC puts Lincoln Riley back in the spotlight

Riley is 41-20 in his fifth season at USC without a playoff trip or a conference title, and his roughly $70 million buyout has kept the hot-seat talk from turning into action.

“This is where I want to be. This is the right place for me. I’m the right person to be here,” Riley said Tuesday after practice, addressing his future at USC.

A win in Ohio State vs. USC would change the tone around Riley faster than any press conference. USC leads the all-time series 13-10-1, although Ohio State won the last meeting 24-7 in the Cotton Bowl after the 2017 season.

The Coliseum has been even kinder to the Trojans. Ohio State has scored nine points combined in its last four trips there, and the last Buckeyes touchdown in that stadium came in a 13-13 tie in 1949.