I will be interested to see if Fields puts any passes up for grabs tonight. Generally speaking this year he has put up one or two bad balls a game especially when under pressure. Even though they blew out Clemson he threw a pick into triple coverage and 2 of his TDS to tight ends were into blanket coverage. He did similar things against NW and Indiana trying to save the play instead of living to fight another down. I’m hoping we get to steal a possession or 2.

I am interested to see how much and how successful Bama is attacking along the edges. WR screens, sweeps etc. It is something OSU has struggled with all year as a trade off on their defensive strategy. It worked for Clemson early on up until things went haywire. I am also interested to see if Sark is able to work out some 1 v 1 matchups outside the numbers with linebackers with Najee or TEs considering how rarely they come out of base personal.

In the end. Like every game it will be won at the line of scrimmage. If we can run they may have to bring safeties closer to the line of scrimmage allowing Devonta and Metchie to win over the top. If not Mac is going to have to be patient working his way down field and reading zone, hitting check downs and WR screens. After watching other teams play OSU, I am interested to see if we dust off any wildcat for the game. People do that against them to gain numbers since they often have 6 or more in the box.

If we can stop the run, I feel like our secondary is better equipped than most to stick with receivers and cause Fields to hold the ball too long and make poor decisions, but of course he could just break contain and wreck havoc if we can’t catch him. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a good bit of designed QB run out of OSU if Fields is healthy.

This post was edited on 1/11/21 at 10:22 am