Football season is now just four days away for Ohio State, with Ball State preparing to come to Columbus for its Week 1 matchup with the Buckeyes on Sept. 5.
Ohio State is unsurprisingly a major favorite in that game, considered by multiple sportsbooks to be favored by 50-plus points over the Cardinals. Even though it may be the first game of the season, it may not be the game that the Buckeyes are most worried about at this point when it comes to the win-loss column.
That’s because starting the Buckeyes down one week later is a daunting trip to Austin, Texas, to play the Longhorns for the third straight season, this time in what will certainly be a hectic environment.
So, how is head coach Ryan Day approaching the game against Ball State? It may be helpful for Ohio State to treat it as sort of a tune-up, preseason type contest to try to get as right as they can for Texas, which is an approach that Day seems to be taking.
“The first thing you want to do is you want to play clean,” Day said on Tuesday. “We can control everything that happens before the snap. Whether it’s procedural things, alignments, communication, we have to be great at all of the things before the snap and then we have to play with great fundamentals, take care of the football and be smart post snap.”
It’s no surprise to see the Buckeyes taking that approach as the current No. 1 team in the country with a team coming to town that finished in the bottom half of the MAC last year.
But that doesn’t mean the Buckeyes aren’t taking the game against the Cardinals seriously.
“The second thing is establishing a certain identity of playing really, really hard, really tough and playing smart football and doing our job,” Day said. “All of those things in game one are important. It’s not really about our opponent.”
Fifth year safety Earl Little Jr. also spoke to the media on Tuesday and spoke about his preparation for Ball State, another team that filled much of its roster through the transfer portal this offseason like the Buckeyes did.
Little spoke about Keldric Luster, who was named the starting quarterback for the Cardinals two weeks before the opener.
Luster doesn’t have a lot of in-game experience at the college level, but he has been with three different programs now — SMU and Texas State before Ball State — and combined for just 4-of-12 passing for 37 yards to go with 16 rushing attempts for 76 yards on the ground.
“They have a good squad,” Little said. “I like what (Luster) is able to do. He can extend plays with his feet. That’s kind of their attack. That’s really what they’re doing. They have a whole bunch of eye violation plays, so we have to be on our Ps and Qs on the defensive side of the ball.”
And fifth year offensive lineman Carson Hinzman acknowledged playing Texas, and the tough schedule the Buckeyes have as a whole this season. But he reminded everyone that they can’t look too far ahead and they are focusing on what’s right in front of them at the moment.
“There’s a lot of big games (on our schedule),” Hinzman said. “We have to go and win. … But we also have to take this one game at a time, and right now its Ball State.”
