By Danielle Daniels
Buckeyes will have their first night game inside Ohio Stadium this season
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio State wraps up its 2023 home season with the first of consecutive Ohio Stadium games this Saturday against the Michigan State Spartans.
First and Ten
• NBC, part of the Big Ten’s new media rights contract, will make its first visit in this agreement to Ohio Stadium to broadcast the game.
• This is Ohio State’s eighth night game played in November, the fifth at Ohio Stadium and the first since the 2020 COVID-19 season when it played Rutgers on Nov. 7 and won, 49-27, in front of 1,275 fans.
• The game will be the 52nd between the two schools with Ohio State holding a 36-15 series lead that includes a 17-9 record in games played in Columbus.
• The Buckeyes are ranked in the national Top 5 – No. 3 in the AP and coaches’ polls – for a fifth consecutive season coming into the Michigan State game.
• The Spartans have defeated a Top 5 Ohio State team five times, includ¬ing defeating a No. 1-ranked Ohio State team two times: in 1974 and 1998.
• Ohio State opens its 2024 Big Ten season Sept. 28 in East Lansing.
Numbers To Know
5-0: Ohio State is 5-0 all-time in November night games played outside (starts after 5 p.m.) with wins over Rutgers (2020), Nebraska (2016), Minnesota (2015), Michigan State (2014) and Illinois (2014).
44: The average temperature at kickoff for Ohio State’s five night games played outside in November: 44 degrees. Ohio State has played Minnesota two more times in November, but inside the Metrodome.
30: A win Saturday would earn Ohio State its 30th 10-or-more win season in school history, good for fourth all-time in FBS history. It would also give Ohio State nine 10-win seasons in the CFP era.
55: Ohio State has been ranked in the College Football Playoff rankings all 55 weeks of the rankings. Alabama is the only other school with such a streak. Clemson (51) and Oklahoma (47) are next.
Marvin Harrison Jr. is having a 2023 season to rival his 2022 unanimous All-American season: 52 receptions for 918 yards, a 17.9 ypc avg., and 10 TDs this year. Through nine games in 2022, he had 53 for 834, a 15.7 avg., and 10 TDs. He is fourth nationally in TDs, ninth in receiving yards, has seven TDs in the last five games and he is a contender for the Heisman Memorial Trophy.
Ohio State will be sporting all gray uniforms – a dark steel gray as compared with the team’s typical wolf gray – with scarlet accents for the Michigan State game.
This is the 34th game wearing an alternate uniform and the first scarlet on all gray combination for the Buckeyes.
Ohio State has a record of 26-7 in its alternate uniforms since first wearing them in 2009 vs. Michigan (a 21-10 win).
Ryan Day is 4-0 vs. Michigan State as a head coach with his teams outscoring the Spartans by a 191-49 advantage.
Day’s record includes the 2020 COVID-19 year win, although Day missed the game because of the virus. Larry Johnson was interim coach.
Day is credited with the win as he did not miss the game because of a suspension.
Ohio State has won just three consecutive over Michigan State in Columbus (since the 17-14 Spartan win in 2015), but Ohio State has won nine consecutive in East Lansing. Michigan State’s last win at Spartan Stadium: 23-7 in 1999.
An Ohio State win would tie its longest win streak in the series at eight (1975-84).
Marvin Harrison Jr.’s three touchdowns vs. MSU last year was his third game with three TDs, breaking the school record for TD receptions he shared with Joey Galloway.
SAF Cam Martinez (Muskegon) and brothers Cayden and Kai Saunders (Northville) are the only Buckeyes from the state of Michigan.
