Time: Noon EST, Sat
Spread: OSU -18
Total: 62.5
Odds from Bookmaker
Ohio State nearly escaped with a victory last week over Indiana, but it was a victory nonetheless. Beating the Hoosiers by only three points, though, didn’t sit well with the critical OSU coach Urban Meyer.
The win was marked by shoddy defense. Despite putting up 52 points of their own, they allowed the Hoosiers to put up 49, and they nearly blew an 18-point lead in the last two minutes of the contest.
“The teams that get to where the errors are rare are the real elite teams,” Meyer commented. “At some point you have to play some really good defense…right now Alabama and Florida (are) the best two defenses in America, and that’s not by accident.”
Needless to say, Meyer wants his Buckeyes squad to join the ranks of the elite, and sitting at No. 7 in the AP polls indicates that they may be by season’s end.
Starting LB Etienne Sabino is out for three more weeks with a broken leg, but it shouldn’t deter OSU from pounding a Purdue squad that has struggled badly offensively. This week provides a chance for Meyer’s squad to get back on track.
Purdue sits at 3-3 and has lost both of their conference games. The Boilermakers put up only 13 points on 213 yards in their loss to Michigan, and they nearly replicated that poor performance against Wisconsin last week, losing 38-14 while managing only 252 yards. That kind of production won’t be enough to beat Braxton Miller and the Buckeyes, and it’s going to take a big game from RB Akeem Shavers to keep Purdue in this one.
Shavers said “We’ve just got to come out and start running it better…balance on offense. We can’t have success if it’s 70-30 (70 percent running, 30 percent passing).”
If Purdue was playing stellar defense, the story might be different, but their defense has struggled nearly as badly as the offense. They gave up 645 total yards to Wisconsin and they’ve allowed 529.3 yards on average over their last three contests.
The Buckeyes will look to extend a seven game home winning streak they have against Purdue, but the last six meetings have been split, including the Boilermakers 26-23 OT win last year on November 12th.
Purdue Betting Trends:
Boilermakers are 6-1 ATS in their last 7 games after allowing a double digit loss at home, 9-2-2 ATS in their last 13 after allowing 200+ yards rushing previous game, 4-1 ATS in their last 5 after accumulating less than 170 passing yards, 1-6-2 ATS in their last 9 on turf, and 0-3-1 ATS in their last 4 conference games.
OSU Betting Trends:
Buckeyes are 4-1 ATS in their last 5 OCT games, 26-11 ATS in their last 37 after accumulating 450+ total yards in the previous game, 34-16-1 ATS in their last 51 after allowing 450+ total yards previous game, 1-4 ATS in their last 5 on turf, and 1-4 ATS in their last 5 after allowing 280+ passing yards previous game.
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