Ohio State’s season opener versus Indiana will be far from normal

Ohio State’s 2017 season opener is quite an oddity for the program. The last time Buckeyes started a season in conference play? 1976. The last regular season game they played on a Thursday? 2010. They’ll do both tomorrow, as they head to Bloomington, Ind., to face Indiana in a game with storylines aplenty.

The most obvious is the return of former IU Head Coach Kevin Wilson (now Ohio State Offensive Coordinator) and how that will play against current Hoosiers bossman Tom Allen. While that should be delightfully awkward and make for some repetitive sideline camera shots (drink every time ESPN shows Wilson up in the coaches box), the Buckeyes have a ton of questions to answer after what happened the last time they took the field.

On this episode of The Hangout in the Holy Land, Colton Denning and Matt Brown break down everything you need to look for on Thursday night against the Hoosiers, including:

• Why we’ll learn more from this game about Wilson’s offense than we usually would during Ohio State’s other season openers.
• Waiting for the wide receivers to prove that they’ve turned a corner, and taking the offseason reports of their improvement at face value.
• Which freshman they think will be in the rotation on both sides of the ball.
• Why the defensive line will be instrumental in helping out the new-look secondary.

The guys also talk a bit about a few of the other exciting games going on in Week 1 around the country, and more!

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