Know the Foe: Ohio State

Inside Tulsa Sports was joined by the staff of Scarlet and Gray Report for a discussion about the Golden Hurricane's upcoming opponent, No. 9 Ohio State. Tulsa takes on the Buckeyes at 2:30 pm on Saturday in Columbus, Ohio.

SGR Staff: The running game. Minnesota had Mo Ibrahim for most of the game before he went down with a season ending injury. He had 163 yards on 30 carries, which is obviously a lot, but he's also a really good back and it was the first game of the year. Then, CJ Verdell went for 161 in 20 carries against the Buckeyes and scored three touchdowns.

Ohio State is breaking in basically an entirely new linebacking corps, and that's been an issue. Ryan Day has been shuffling all kinds of players in and out on defense looking for the right combination, but it hasn't happened yet.

OSU is 109th in scoring defense, 112th in total defense and 122nd in run defense this year. They've played two Power Five opponents, but still.

SGR Staff: Stroud has had an adjustment period in both games where you watched and thought maybe he was a little bit off. And then he's settled in and been absolutely ridiculous. He's completing 63% of his passes for 778 yards, 7 touchdowns and 2 interceptions through two games. He's also throwing to probably the best wide receiving corps in the country.

Everyone knows about Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson, maybe the top two wideouts in college football, but Jaxon Smith-Ejigba got in on the act with two touchdowns against Oregon. All three of the receivers went over 100 yards in that game.

At the same time, OSU completely abandoned the running game, which was problematic. The Buckeyes look like they'll go mostly with Miyam WIlliams and true freshman TreVeyon Henderson going forward. Both had touchdowns of 70 yards against Minnesota and are plenty capable. I'd expect the Buckeyes to try to get back to running the ball.