I-70 Football Podcast: No. 2 Ohio State survives a rock fight against No. 5 Notre Dame

Welcome to a new episode of Land-Grant Holy Land’s I-70 Podcast. On this show, we talk all things Big Ten football and basketball. After every week of action, we will get you caught up on all the conference’s games and look ahead at the matchups, storylines, and players that you should be paying attention to in the next week. My name is Jordan Williams, and I am joined by my co-host Dante Morgan.

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Week 1 has come and gone, and we’re here to break down what was a wild week of football in the Big Ten and across the entire college football landscape. Before we get into that, Jordan has some thoughts on Week 0 as Scott Frost continues to prove he’s not qualified to be the head coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

After another one-score loss, Frost has done nothing but finds ways to lose and blame other people. Despite pulling away in the end, his team led North Dakota by seven points late into the fourth quarter in a game most of us thought they would find a way to lose. Is there any way he can save his job, or is he doomed to be fired after the Indiana game when his buy-out gets cut in half from $15 million to $7.5 million on Oct. 1?

Week 1 saw a wide range of games and performances, from Iowa winning a game against an FCS opponent 7-3 without scoring a touchdown to Rutgers defeating Boston College by one point in one of the biggest wins of the Greg Schiano era. Penn State and Purdue played a classic game, combining for 66 points but only 168 total rushing yards as both teams struggled to run the ball. Sean Clifford and Conor Bazelak led game-winning drives for Penn State and Indiana respectively as Penn State hopes to find their way back to the top of the Big Ten and Indiana is hoping to prove that last year was a fluke. Chase Brown, Mohamed Ibrahim, and Braelon Allen started their 2022 campaign with a bang, all running for over 100 yards as they look to lead their teams to a bowl game and challenge for the Big Ten West.

Ohio State survived a tough game against Notre Dame. Marcus Freeman and his band of former Buckeye players and coaches came into the Shoe looking to upset Ohio State and begin this new era with a win against a top-five program. The Buckeyes faced adversity immediately, as Julian Fleming was ruled out for the game and Jaxon Smith-Njigba sat out most of the game after suffering an injury early in the contest.

Without two of his top weapons, Stroud struggled to find a rhythm while Day refused to lean on the running game, leading to Notre Dame holding a 10-7 lead for most of the game. While the offense struggled, the defense held Notre Dame in check, forcing six straight punts until the offense found a rhythm scoring two touchdowns to secure a 21-10 lead.

Week 1 gave us some amazing games with a few Big Ten matchups and even a top five showdown, but Week 2 is largely buy games as only two programs play other P5 teams. This should be a week where even the worst of the Big Ten will be able to secure a win — at least in theory.

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Jordan: @JordanW330

Dante: @DanteM10216