EVANSTON, Ill. - There were not many people out there that though that Northwestern was going to upset the Buckeyes in the same style that Iowa (2017) and/or Purdue (2018) was able to.
Not many people expected Ohio State to go in and win the game by 49 points however as the line took a sharp dip the evening of the game as a lot of money started to come in on Northwestern in the closing moments and pushed the line in some places down closer to 26 points.
The oddsmakers have not been able to find lines this season that have been able to peg the Buckeyes as Ohio State is now 6-1 against the spread, with its lone loss occurring in the season opener against Florida Atlantic when the Buckeyes only won by 24 points and did not cover the 27-point spread set by the oddsmakers.
We don't focus too much on these types of numbers because if we were better with the betting, we would be doing something different for a living and would also reside in a state where sports wagering was legal.
Coming out of the open week before the Northwestern game, we have gone a couple of weeks without really digging down into the numbers and come back with some updated numbers as we wrap up the week that was and look ahead to the next challenge.
5: The number of touchdowns that Ohio State has allowed this entire season. That is impressive enough when you think that this team has already played in seven games but add to that the fact that Ohio State yielded two of those touchdowns in the first game of the season (in the 4th quarter of a 45-21 win over FAU) and the total is now down to three in the last six games, and it becomes even more impressive. The number is so small that we can list each of the instances, a double-pass against Indiana, an afterthought rushing touchdown at Nebraska and then a second-quarter passing touchdown against Michigan State. That’s it, nothing else outside of some field goals (and that safety against Miami, a real outlier to everything that we have seen). Just to put things into a little perspective, Michigan gave up five touchdowns in one game to Wisconsin, in less than three full quarters. Wisconsin gave up three this past weekend to Illinois in its 24-23 loss, as did Penn State in a 28-21 win over Michigan. Minnesota has given up at least three in four different games (but to its credit, has won all those games).
