COLUMBUS — Ohio State and Indiana will meet on Saturday for the first time since the Hoosiers beat the Buckeyes in last year’s Big Ten Championship. In that game last December, Indiana sacked Ohio State five times. It was the first warning sign for an offense that hadn't faced many elite rushing groups for much of the 2025 season and then struggled in back-to-back losses to Indiana and Miami.
Both the Hoosiers and Buckeyes have seen roster changes since last year, but many faces in the matchup between the Indiana defense and Ohio State offense remain the same. The Hoosiers’ defense is still led by coordinator Bryant Haines, arguably the sport's best defensive play-caller right now.
So there are lessons from Indiana's five sacks last year that can apply to Saturday’s game in Bloomington, Ind.
Let’s dive in.
First sack: Third-and-5 from the Indiana 46 in the first quarter
This just so happens to be the first sack of the game, but if I were ranking the types of sacks Ohio State most needs to avoid on Saturday, this would be at the top of the list.
The Buckeyes cannot afford dead plays when they pick up the protection correctly.
Indiana runs a lot of games along the defensive line, but it doesn’t actually blitz (send more than four rushers) all that often. The pre-snap key for the quarterback and offensive line is to determine which players lined up near the line are rushing and which are dropping. Here, Ohio State gets it right. The Buckeyes set a three-man slide to the left while leaving the right guard and right tackle to block one-on-one after identifying that the defensive end on the right side is dropping out.