How the Ohio State football team should expect to handle Marshall

The Ohio State football team has looked great in their first two games of the season. Blowout victories over both Akron and Western Michigan have given this team some confidence. They had an extremely early bye week that helped them get some rest as well as give them time to work on some things they needed to improve on.

Ohio State now emerges out of the bye week to play their final non-conference game. They take on a Marshall team that is better than both Akron and Western Michigan. Still, the Thundering Herd aren’t a good enough team to upset the Buckeyes. So what should Ohio State expect from this game and how should they handle it?

How the Ohio State football team will approach the game vs. Marshall

Marshall has a recent history of pulling upsets. They took down Notre Dame a couple of years ago after the Ohio State Buckeyes were able to beat them in the season opener. I would expect that Ryan Day has been drilling that fact into his team for the past two weeks. They can’t overlook this team even though they overmatch them.

Expect the offense to come out firing from the start. They had a very fast start against the Broncos in Week 2. I would expect a similar start this week against a Marshall defense that is completely overmatched. Ohio State’s defense should be good enough to keep Marshall off the board early. It would be a surprise if the Thundering Herd scored in the first half.

Defensively, Caleb Downs and the secondary should be able to lock down Marshall’s receivers. Once Marshall gets down, they’re going to have to throw the ball in order to try to catch up. Downs, Denzel Burke, and the rest of the secondary aren’t going to allow big chunks of yards. This should be another blowout win for the Buckeyes.