For the Ohio State offense, Saturday’s game against No. 9 Indiana brings the most challenging test it has seen this season.

Indiana has picked off a Big Ten-best 10 passes through four games and will blitz frequently and from multiple angles.

Justin Fields has thrown zero interceptions this season and just three throughout his entire collegiate career.

One of those ridiculous statistical runs will be slowed on Saturday.

Fields knows the threat the Indiana pressure and secondary brings, but he isn’t totally sure what the origin of this havoc-inducing Hoosier defense is.

“They must be doing something better,” Fields said on Wednesday. “I’m not sure exactly what it is, but I think they look better as an overall defense.”

As a whole, Tom Allen’s defense is significantly ahead of where it was last season. After giving up a pedestrian 24.4 points and 352.5 yards of offense per game in 2019, those numbers have dropped to 19.2 and 320.8 in 2020, respectively.

Last weekend’s shutout victory over Michigan State certainly helped. Indiana allowed just 191 total yards of offense and nine first downs by the Spartans, forced four turnovers, and registered four sacks.

This is an aggressive defense that comes at opposing quarterbacks in droves.

“From what I’ve seen on film, they blitz and if the quarterback doesn’t know where it’s coming from, the quarterback gets rattled in the pocket, he ends up making a bad decision or making an errant throw,” Fields said of the Hoosier defense. “That’s gonna be the toughest part this week-- just picking up their blitzes.”

Those blitzes do not just come from the defensive line and linebackers, either. Indiana’s leader in sacks is defensive back Tiawan Mullen, who has also picked off two passes this season.

This is a versatile group. The secondary leads the way-- Fields called Indiana’s defensive backs “athletes” and added that the Hoosiers “play a lot of people in the secondary.”

However, the 10 interceptions hauled in by Indiana aren’t directly the result of a superb secondary, Fields said. Everything comes back to generating pressure.

“I think they’ve been getting so many interceptions not only because of their secondary but because of what blitzes they bring,” Fields said. “I think our job on offense is just to pick up every blitz and execute on offense.”

Ohio State has seen more than its fair share of blitzes in 2020. On Tuesday, junior center Josh Myers said opposing defenses are doing whatever they can to throw Fields off, even if that means “blitzing every play.”

The reason for the unprecedented level of pressure Ohio State faces every game is simple: no one has been able to stop this Buckeye offense, so the next best thing is attempting to throw it off completely.

That’s what this Hoosier defense is hoping to do on Saturday. It’s what the unit has successfully done all season long.

Indiana has forced more turnovers this season (12) than Fields has incompletions (11). The word ‘interception’ doesn’t appear to be in the junior quarterback’s vocabulary, no matter how much pressure he faces.

“I’ve always looked at the quarterback position as pretty simple in terms of not throwing interceptions-- that’s just not throwing the ball to the other team,” Fields said. “Of course, it sounds easier than it is playing the game, but that just comes with reps, knowing where your guys are gonna be, trusting your teammates, and doing that stuff.”

Even with the confidence and trust in himself that Fields oozes every time he steps on the field, he knows this might be the biggest challenge yet for his offense.

“I think it’s definitely one of the best defenses we’ll play all year,” Fields said.

No matter who lines up across from him, no matter what a defense has done in the past, the man who many project to win the Heisman remains calm. He understands there is only one outcome that matters.

Putting points on the board.

“My job is to not panic and stay calm in the pocket and deliver footballs to my receivers,” Fields said. “It’s pretty simple.”