The Ohio State football program is ready to start the season. On Saturday afternoon, they will face the Akron Zips at the Shoe. It will be the first time the Buckeyes have played them since 2021. Ohio State won that game 59-7 in a game that was never really close at any point.
Ohio State is hoping to have a similar result this weekend. They want to make sure there is no doubt in the game. This will be the first game that Will Howard will play as the starting quarterback and the first time that Caleb Downs will play as a Buckeye. It will be an exciting time.
While the outcome of the game is not in question, there are still a few things fans should pay attention to. Throughout the season, we’ll make bold predictions for every Buckeyes game, and for this game against Akron, we have three of them.
The first bold prediction concerns Howard and how well he will do in his debut.
Howard will be nervous in his first game in the shoe. It’s only natural that he’s thinking about how much pressure the team is under this year. The Buckeyes need Howard to be a little better than Kyle McCord was last year. They don’t need him to be a Heisman Trophy candidate.
This will be the best supporting cast Howard has ever had. The receivers he’s throwing the ball to could all be first-round picks in due course. The running backs he’s throwing the ball to are some of the best in the country. Everything is going well for him.
I think Howard is going to start his football career at Ohio State with a bang. He’ll throw for over 300 yards against the Zips. I think he’ll throw at least three touchdown passes as well. What he also gives the Ohio State Buckeyes that McCord didn’t give them is the ability to run.
Howard will run for 50+ yards in this game as well. They will use some read option plays. I also think he will run and get some yards on broken plays. That will make Ohio State fans happy.
The second bold prediction for this game deals with what TreVeyon Henderson will bring to the table.
