Ohio State vs. Indiana: Big Ten Championship Odds & Predictions

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00:00Okay, so a little bit of a stunning line for me here, Paul.

00:03This was the one that I really wanted to ask you about here

00:06because Ohio State has basically dominated everybody all season,

00:10especially on defense.

00:11They basically do not give up more than a touchdown in almost any game.

00:14They're only four and a half point favorites in the Big Ten Championship.

00:18Saturday night, 8 p.m. Eastern, neutral site,

00:21total of 47 and a half, a conference championship game, Paul, with a 47.

00:26That's pretty low in college football, all things considered.

00:30But, man, what is this line telling us going into Saturday night?

00:33Can Indiana pull this off and be the number one seed in the college football playoff?

00:37Well, I'll tell you, one book on Sunday, Craig, the book opened to Ohio State

00:44as a six and a half point favorite in this game in Las Vegas.

00:47So it shows you that the public has bet, you know,

00:50taking money on the Hoosiers clearly to this point.

00:53Ohio State money might show between now and Saturday night.

00:56But I'll start off by offering that I think even though we've played 12 games

01:01and both these teams undefeated at 12-0, we've played the complete regular season,

01:05I still think there's a little bit of mystery about both of them,

01:09and it's based on their schedule.

01:10I mean, Ohio State, their schedule only the 37th toughest in the country right now,

01:15as rated by Jeff Sagren, Indiana coming in even lower at 56.

01:21Ohio State missed a lot of the – they obviously hadn't played Indiana.

01:24They'll play them Saturday night, but they also missed – did Ohio State.

01:28They missed Oregon on their schedule, USC, Iowa.

01:31They didn't play some of those upper echelon Big Ten teams.

01:35So they only really played one competitive game into the fourth quarter.

01:38That was their opener against Texas, defeated the Longhorns 14-7.

01:43Ohio State pretty much controlled that game from the start,

01:46led 14-0 there in the second half.

01:50Texas scores a touchdown to bring it to 14-7.

01:52And Texas actually had the ball at midfield with two minutes to go, so that was a tight game.

01:58But other than that, in their other 11 games,

02:01Ohio State has had no one play them any closer than 18 points.

02:04Michigan did it this past weekend at the Big House,

02:07and then earlier in the year, Washington did it on their home field there at Husky Stadium.

02:13And Ohio State, part of it is the schedule, but probably most of it's just they're that good.

02:18And you mentioned their defense, and they are really good on defense,

02:22only giving up 8.5 points per game in the regular season through 12 games,

02:27only 206 yards a game, less than four yards of play allowed.

02:32They give up 3.7 yards per play.

02:35I don't remember anybody giving up that little in recent times.

02:38So that's a great defense.

02:40But this Indiana team, you know, they've really shown themselves the last couple of years.

02:47I was kind of a naysayer last year with Kirk Signetti,

02:50and, you know, they didn't play their best against Notre Dame

02:53and earlier in the late regular season against Ohio State last year.

02:57But I think this is a better Indiana team.

02:59We've seen them on the road.

03:01We saw them go to Austin Stadium.

03:03They maybe didn't dominate the Ducks,

03:04but they were clearly the better team on that day.

03:07Defeated Oregon 30-20 on the road,

03:10one of the toughest environments in all of college football.

03:12I like Indiana plus 4.5 to play a close one against Ohio State

03:16Saturday night in Indianapolis.

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