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I don't even want to go back to my Tale of the Tape's against Iowa and Purdue in the previous seasons to look at how sure I was that Ohio State was not only going to win those games but win them by comfortable margins. Two very promising seasons met some abrupt halts on the road during night games within the conference against teams from the Big Ten West.

Northwestern is also from the Big Ten West. Northwestern is also a night game. Not only a night game, but a rare one-off Friday night game. Ohio State has about as promising of a start as a team can have, climbing up to the top-five of the major polls after being somewhat overlooked to start the season by many and just taking care of business and rolling teams as they come up on the schedule.

The Buckeyes already had to face the road/night/B1G West demon once when it traveled to Lincoln (Neb.) to take on the Nebraska Cornhuskers and the road team was met with little resistance in a 48-7 win in a game that was not even as close as a 41-point margin would indicate.

These Northwestern Wildcats are not the same team that Ohio State faced less than a year ago in the B1G Championship game, not by a long shot. Granted, that was a late November game versus a mid-October game, so we are not talking about the same number of games worth of data going into the mix, but the 2019 Cats are scoring 9.3 fewer points per game rushing for almost 50 yards fewer a contest and passing for close to a 100 yards fewer.

The defensive numbers are pretty close in line but a quick reminder that the only two teams with any name value in the Big Ten race that the Cats have faced to date are Wisconsin and Michigan State, both losses, but to NU's credit, games that they kept close to somewhat close (still not sure why Fitz went chasing points against the Badgers, but we also don't want him going off on us like he did during his postgame press conference).

The point is, the Cats still have games against Iowa (granted, the Hawkeyes have forgotten what offense looks like), Indiana (a true hot/cold team), Purdue (will Rondale Moore be back by then?) and Minnesota (surely the Gophers won't be undefeated by then) as well as UMass and Illinois (we don't want to talk about either of them). We just don't see those defensive numbers holding, regardless of what Ohio State is able or unable to do against the Cats.

Even with a big differential according to the Vegas line we still have to go to the Tale of the Tape to put this game in focus and draw some conclusions going into the Buckeyes versus Wildcats.

Ohio State defensive backs have seven picks at this point of the season (the eighth on the team goes to linebacker Tuf Borland) and the pass defense is holding teams to just 152 yards per game and a grand total of three passing touchdowns over six games, an average of 0.5 for those who are not math-inclined. The Buckeyes will be going up against their weakest passing foe of the season with Northwestern checking in at No. 123 nationally, even four worse than Miami-Ohio. It has been a mixed bag for what the Buckeyes have faced with Indiana being the high-water mark at 17th and most teams residing in the middle of the pack. Only Georgia Southern (zero) has fewer passing touchdowns than Northwestern at two and it is going to be a tough night for the Cats to find a lot of success against one of the pass defenses in the nation in Ohio State. This may not be a heavy turnover game in terms of Ohio State jumping in front of passes and pulling in picks as the Cats know who they are and will likely not look to throw into tight windows and challenge the Buckeyes that way. Granted, we are not sure if running the ball against Ohio State is going to bear much fruit either, so it is a pick your poison game for Northwestern and both outcomes look to be equally bleak.

Northwestern has not been able to throw for more than 165 yards in any of its previous five games and that came against a pretty poor UNLV team (granted they made Vanderbilt look really bad this past week). It has been a wheel of quarterbacks with three paying this year but Aidan Smith has been the guy as of late and he has a sub-39-percent completion rating and has only completed 12 passes on the year. Hunter Johnson, the former five-star from Clemson was supposed to step into Clayton Thorson's vacancy and be the guy but his 48-percent completion percentage with one touchdown versus four interceptions was not getting it down and Smith saw all the snaps in the most recent game against Nebraska. Bennett Skowronek leads the Cats in receiving yardage with 141 and has only played in three games and has not recorded a stat since the Sept. 21st game against Michigan State. But he is out indefinitely. Who's up next? Riley Lees leads the team with 19 catches but only has 139 yards and no touchdowns. JJ Jefferson is the leader in terms of touchdowns with two, as in he has ALL the Northwestern receiving touchdowns, one against UNLV and inexplicably, the other was against Wisconsin. There really is not anyone else to focus on, there are no big numbers or underreported numbers in terms of the passing game. The Cats have thrown eight picks to two touchdowns, average 140 yards per game passing and all throwers combine for a sub-50-percent completion percentage. We are just surprised they have thrown eight picks when they are not accurate enough to even complete one in two pass attempts.