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For whatever reason the Big Ten scheduling computer decided to give the Buckeyes both of the "new" teams on back-to-back weeks. Ohio State is now 7-0 all-time against Rutgers and will be looking to do the same things against the Terrapins of Maryland.

There have been absolute routs in this series, look at 62-3 in College Park (Md.) back in 2016 and 73-14 in 2019 in Columbus (Ohio). But to Maryland's credit there have been much closer games in this series compared to what Rutgers has been able to muster on the field, and no Ohio State fan will forget the last time that the Buckeyes went to Capital One Field and had to eke out a one-point win in overtime, 52-51, in a game where Anthony McFarland ran for eleventy-million yards on the Ohio State defense, in a year where the Ohio State defense was just not up to par with previous editions.

Fast forward to this year and fans are starting to clamor about the same defensive worries, and while three games is not nearly enough data points to really make a comparison, there are some numbers that seem to carry over from that 2018 defense to this one, at least through now.

Let's not forget that 2018 was a year where the Buckeyes were able to have a non-conference schedule, so you have to decide if you are looking at the first three games of the season or if you are looking at the first three conference games of the season, because Oregon State and TCU, while both Power Five teams, may not carry the same weight in name as a Penn State and Nebraska.

Of all of those stats, the points should be the most concerning, and for the sake of full disclosure, Ohio State is scoring more points in Big Ten competition in 2020 (46.3) than it did in its first three games of 2018 (42.6) and the margin of victory is about the same with 2018 seeing a one-point edge, mostly facilitated with a 52-3 drubbing of Rutgers.

What does any of this have to do with Maryland? Good question.

The Terps came out and laid one of the biggest eggs of the young Big Ten season in week one against Northwestern, a 43-3 loss in Evanston (Ill.) but since then has looked pretty good.

It has gotten the attention of Ohio State fans who remember all-too-well the 2018 game in College Park, one where a 13.5-point road favorite Buckeyes needed to come back time-and-time again to secure a win by the slimmest of margins.

Enough with these random bits and pieces, let's get to the main course and talk about the Terps here in the Tale of the Tape.

Does it really come down to this? It might be a little too simplistic to say that this will be it, that would be taking away a lot from the Maryland run game as well as the Ohio State offense but if all things are being equal, few teams are going to slow down the Ohio State offense all that much this season and the Terps are going to have to hold serve and the expectations are going to be that will take place by way of the pass. The Buckeyes have been a first half team on defense apparently, allowing just 7.7 ppg in the first half including only 113 yards of total offense in the first 30 minutes of a game. That yardage total swells to 245.3 yards per game in the second half. Now, the Buckeyes have been winning games by large margins and there always is the desire to get younger players in to get them experience, but these numbers seem to be somewhat out of whack. If you look at first half passing numbers for Ohio State's first three opponents, nobody has had more than 72 yards in the first half by way of throwing the ball and if you average all three totals out, it comes in at just 51.7 yards per game in the first two quarters. If Ohio State were able to just replicate those numbers at 75-percent efficiency in the second half, we would not be talking about any of this, but that is not the case and everyone is wondering "what is wrong with this Ohio State defense"? Ohio State still is obviously dealing with the loss of Cameron Brown at cornerback and was forced to roll a lot of young players out on the field against Rutgers last week and while the trio of Shaun Wade, Marcus Williamson and Sevyn Banks saw the majority of the snaps, Ryan Watts saw his first action with more than a dozen snaps.

It appears that the Terps have their guy with quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa who has stepped into a shaky (over the course of the last several years) quarterback room and locked things down. The buzz around him makes it sound like he is throwing for 300 yards a game and that is just not true, he has only broken that number once, in an overtime game against Minnesota. But with that, it is not as if Tagovailoa is being asked to throw the ball a whole lot either, he has not gone north of 35 carries once this season and in his other two games has thrown fewer than 30 passes. Tagovailoa has just as many interceptions as touchdown passes but three of the four picks came in week one against Northwestern and since then the accuracy is up. It is a mixture of the old and the new in terms of pass catchers with the Terps. Dontay Demas leads the team with 17 grabs for 228 yards and a couple of scores while freshman Rakim Jarrett had a big game against Penn State last week and moved up the stats list and now sits with 12 receptions for 213 yards and two scores as well. No Maryland tight end has a reception through three games this season. One thing you can say about the Maryland receivers and the offense is that there is a big play ability with four receivers all having 30-yard-plus receptions on the year. Maryland has a lot of size at the receiver position with no receiver measuring in under 6-foot-1 on the two-deep.