By Danielle Daniels
FIRST AND TEN
• No. 3/4 (AP) Ohio State kicks off its 134th season of intercollegiate football with a 3:30 p.m. game Saturday in Bloomington, Ind., against Indiana.
CBS, one of two new network TV partners with the Big Ten, will broadcast the game nationally.
• Ohio State, after winning Big Ten championships in head coach Ryan Day’s first two seasons (2019 and 2020), is coming off consecutive 11-2 seasons in 2021 and ’22 with 8-1 Big Ten records.
• The Buckeyes hold a commanding 78-12-5 advantage over the Hoosiers in the all-time series that began in 1901 and have won 27 consecutive games since a 27-all tie in Bloomington in 1990. Ohio State is 29-2-1 vs. IU all-time in Bloomington.
• Indiana’s last wins over Ohio State came consecutively in 1987 and 1988.
• Ohio State features 16 players who earned all-Big Ten honors last season, including first-team honorees WR Marvin Harrison Jr. (All-American; Big Ten WR of the Year), DE JT Tuimoloau (10.5 TFLs, 3.5 sacks, 2 INTs and 4 PBUs), LB Tommy Eichenberg (2nd-team All-American, 120 tackles and 12.0 TFLs) and OG Donovan Jackson (13 starts 2022).
THE 2023 BUCKEYES
• Ohio State’s 2023 team will feature 16 players who earned all-Big Ten honors last season, including first-team honorees WR Marvin Harrison Jr., DE JT Tuimoloau, LB Tommy Eichenberg and OG Donovan Jackson. Also returning: 2nd-team all-Big Ten honorees WR Emeka Egbuka and OG Matt Jones; 3rd-team: DT Michael Hall Jr., TE Cade Stover and RB Miyan Williams; and honorable mention: CB Denzel Burke, LB Steele Chambers, RB TreVeyon Henderson, P Jesse Mirco, SAF Lathan Ransom, DE Jack Sawyer and DT Tyleik Williams
• A total of 16 starters are back, with seven each on offense and defense.
• On special teams, the Buckeyes will be replacing two-year starting kicker Noah Ruggles and veteran longsnapper Bradley Robinson.
• The positions of wide receiver (38 combined career starts between Marvin Harrison Jr., Emeka Egbuka and Julian Fleming) and linebacker (44 career starts by Tommy Eichenberg, Steele Chambers and Cody Simon) are the most veteran and experienced for the Buckeyes entering the season.
• In the transfer portal, the Buckeyes added 85 combined starts to the roster in the form of the addition of Victor Cutler Jr., (21) and Josh Simmons (13) along the offensive line and Ja’Had Carter (28) and Davison Igbinosun (10) in the defensive backfield. The team also added long snapper John Ferlmann, who snapped in all 12 games for Arizona State in 2022.
• Ranked No. 3 in the Associated Press preseason poll, Ohio State is beginning a season ranked in the top five for the 10th time in the last 11 years.
FOR OPENERS…
• Ohio State has won 22 consecutive season-opening games dating back to the 1999 loss to No. 12 Miami in the Kickoff Classic at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.
• Overall, the Buckeyes have won 43 of their last 46 season openers.
• This season marks the third time in the last seven seasons that Ohio State is opening its season on the road against a conference opponent.
• The previous two times were in 2017 (at Indiana) and 2021 (at Minnesota).
• Ohio State is 15-0 all-time in season-opening games vs. Big Ten competition.
134TH SEASON OF FOOTBALL
• The 2023 football season will represent the 134th season of football for the Ohio State Buckeyes.
• The school first competed intercollegiately in 1890 and has since amassed 953 victories to rank second in NCAA history.
• The Buckeyes currently rank first all-time in overall winning percentage (.733), and second with 39 conference championships.
SCOUTING INDIANA
• Head coach Tom Allen enters his seventh season leading the Hoosiers in 2023. He was the 2020 American Football Coaches Association National Coach of the Year.
• IU co-defensive coordinator Matt Guerrieri spent the 2022 season on Ohio State’s staff as a senior advisor/analyst. He has a long history with defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, including working with him at Duke from 2012-17.
• The Hoosiers’ roster includes 48 newcomers, the second-most of any program in the Big Ten (Nebraska has 62 newcomers).
• Of those 48 newcomers, 36 are scholarship players and 32 were brought in via the transfer portal.
• Indiana returns just eight starters from last year’s team, which is the fourth-fewest nationally. Only Colorado, Stanford and New Mexico return less.
HISTORY VS. THE HOOSIERS
• Saturday’s game represents the 96th all-time meeting between Ohio State and Indiana in a series that dates back to 1901.
• This is the third-longest running or oldest series for Ohio State, after its series against Michigan (118 games) and Illinois (103 games).
• Ohio State leads the series 78-12-5.
• Ohio State has won 27 consecutive games over Indiana, but Indiana has made things interesting of late with three one-score games in the last 11 years.
• The Buckeyes’ 27-game winning streak is the nation’s longest over a single opponent.
• The second-longest active streak: Texas A&M has won 24 consecutive games over TCU.
• Indiana’s last wins over Ohio State were back-to-back in 1987 (31-10) and 1988 (41-7). The teams played to a 27-all tie in 1990. Bill Mallory was IU head coach for each of those seasons.
COURTESY OSU ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS
