Illinois-Ohio State: Statistical head-to-head preview

Ohio State has their eyes firmly squared on moving to 10-0 on the season. Standing in their way are long time obstacle (and "rival", given that they exchange a giant wooden turtle to the winners in the series), the University of Illinois. The Illini have had a rough first year under former Toledo head man Tim Beckman, but a win over Ohio State could take Beckman's already successful 2013 recruiting and jump start the rebuilding process into overdrive.

In order to better get a feel for how these two teams matchup on paper, we put together a list of the most pertinent stats that help make things a bit clearer. A few quick observations:

• Illinois' offensive line is every bit as bad as advertised.
• Ohio State's secondary is roughly the same.
• Ohio State's defense overall isn't as bad as folks thought it was a few weeks back.
• Illinois' had a lot of practice punting (and are very good at it in lieu there of).
• Ohio State's o-line isn't as faith instilling as our eyes had led us to believe.

Advantage	Conf	National	Actual	Category	Actual	National	Conf
	Rank	Rank				Rank	Rank
	11th	91st	132.5	Rushing Offense	247.9	9th	2nd
	8th	104th	184.9	Passing Offense	183.9	105th	9th
	12th	110th	317.4	Total Offense	431.8	45th	3rd
	12th	118th	18.0	Scoring Offense	38.6	21st	2nd
	7th	57th	152.6	Rushing Defense	111.7	21st	3rd
	12th	109th	149.2	Pass Efficiency Defense	120.2	40th	7th
	8th	44th	213.3	Pass Defense	277.9	111th	12th
	8th	45th	365.9	Total Defense	389.6	60th	9th
	12th	88th	30.8	Scoring Defense	24.1	50th	8th
	9th	91st	12	Sacks	20	31st	3rd
	12th	103rd	37	Tackles for Loss	41	87th	9th
	11th	100th	-6	Turnover Margin	+1	53rd	6th
	12th	121st	1.77	Punt Returns	9.18	52nd	5th
	11th	120th	16.15	Kickoff Returns	20.48	82nd	7th
	1st	39th	42.35	Punting	39.38	101st	8th
	12th	111th	30	Sacks Allowed	18	81st	9th
	11th	102nd	34.96%	3rd Down Conversions	44.72%	38th	3rd