Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Big 10 SQUAD - What Analysts Say About the Season for the Iowa Hawkeyes

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

Penn State's chaotic coaching search hits new lows—can the Nittany Lions recover before recruiting collapses? Ohio State and Indiana prepare to clash for the Big Ten Championship as rivals question who truly deserves the conference crown.The crew recaps Rivalry Week, spotlighting Ohio State’s dominant win over Michigan and Indiana’s underrated offense. Hot takes on wide receiver matchups, high-pressure playoff stakes, and memorable off-field stories elevate the analysis as the hosts and guests deliver bold championship predictions.Is Indiana primed for an upset, or will Ohio State flex its defensive muscle on the biggest stage? Don’t miss passionate picks and behind-the-scenes insights into the Big Ten’s wildest week of the season. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The last time something was botched as hard as Penn State's coaching search, the Warriors blew a 3-1 lead in the finals. We will recap rivalry week and look ahead to the Big Ten championship game. Ohio State and Indiana, who wins? That's on today's a Locked-on Big Ten squad. You're talking ball with the Big Ten squad, sponsored by game time. From USC to Ohio State, from Michigan to Oregon, from Nebraska to Washington, it's the local experts of the Locked-on Podcast Network, bringing you scoops

breakdowns and the most comprehensive preview of the upcoming Big Ten weekend. No hurt feelings and thin skin allowed. Squad up, you're part of the Big Ten Squad. Happy Thursday, everybody. Maybe Penn State has a coach by the time this show airs. We don't know, but this is the Lockdown Big Ten Squad. I'm Spencer McLaughlin, your host, Zach Anderson, Yoximer of Lockdown, UCLA is here. Can't believe I don't have to buy a Nico jersey.

Zach, I am truly shocked. Roman Tomashoff of Lockdown Huskies has licked his wounds and showed up for the show today. Good work, Roman. Very, very well done. Craig Sheiman locked on Big Ten. Ryan Herrings locked on Badgers basketball seasons here. So he's in a good mood. Finally, Jay Stevens, locked on Buckeyes, who we'd all like to hate, but he's too nice of a guy. And Isaiah Hall, can we get a round of applause? Isaiah Hall of Locked on Wolverines has made the appearance here on the Big Ten squad. He is wearing scarlet red today. Yes, Isaiah, please, chime in. I actually, I got to go. See you guys.

Oh, yeah. What a week it has been. The coaching madness is all over the place. Pat Fitzgerald is the head coach at Michigan State. But who knows who's going to be the head coach at Penn State. Zach, I will start with you and we'll go in order. Scale 1 to 10, how badly do you feel like the Penn State AD Pat Kraft just botched this? I would say probably a nine, considering they've been open since, what, mid-October? Like, they've been open for quite some time compared to these. other jobs. So I'd say massive botched job. Yeah. Yeah, massive botched job. That's an original phrase here on the lockdown Big Ten squad. Roman, by the way, I just, it's just, it stubs down this week for you. But at it's a M, man. That's all your, that's all you know. No, no, actually, it's the Washington W and down. I heard Malik Benson's going to score like Kenny Wheaton. But anyway, yeah, you can weigh in on the Penn State coaching search now. Go for it, man. Well, first of all, nothing has been botched harder than your first attempt at the cold open. I'm just going to,

throw that out there. There is no documented record of that happening. No documented record whatsoever. And also who who would have thought that all it would take to just topple Penn State was crumble cookies? Like is that really what wound up getting the job done with all this? It's absolutely tremendous. Now, I want to echo Zach's point. The fact that this is the job that's been open the longest and they're on candidate 15, 16, 17, whatever at this point in time, I mean, it's absolutely insane for what I know is viewed widely just, you know, in the grand scheme of college football is a top 15, top 20 job at the very worst. Yeah, I don't think you could put it outside the top 15.

Can anyone name 15 jobs they'd rather have than Penn State? Nope. I don't, I don't think I, by the way, quick show of hands. Who's had crumble cookies before? Okay. Ryan, you are missing out. They are indeed delicious and they are also even more popular in Provo. if they couldn't already, or as if they weren't already popular, Craig, when you keep

Kalani Sataki right there and away from Happy Valley, boy, I bet their sales are going to surge big time. Oh, absolutely. He looks like he may have had one or two himself, by the way, but by how many, ever he wants now with his new $15 million year contract. But, um, look, Penn State's a great job, but at the same time, they just fired a coach that wins 10 games a year. and got to the playoffs last year,

got to the Big Ten championship game last year, and that's not good enough. So anybody knows that they're going in there, they're going into a pressure cooker, which is fine. Some jobs are like that around college football, but I think also Penn State, thinking they were a top 15 job,

thought that people would crawl to them for that job and play in that stadium in front of 107,000 people in the whiteout, it would be a slam dunk. I also think they thought they could just pick up a phone call. think the first phone call I made was Urban Meyer. I mean, I don't know if you'd agree with that or not. I mean, they had a conversation. I think there's no doubt about it, but he wasn't interested. And then they're like, uh-oh, what do we do now? And now all these coaches,

I think the SEC hired six coaches in one day. All these candidates are just going. And there's nobody left. So on a scale of 1 to 10, how bad do they botches? It's a full on 10 right now. I mean, it's signing day boys and girls and we don't have a head coach. Ryan, what do you think? Yeah. I mean, Craig nailed it. They completely botches. I mean, have a plan, right? Someday when we have more time, maybe in the summer, I'll tell you guys a story about how I got carjacked in Jacksonville, but it starts with you don't have a plan.

You need a plan. So if you're going to fire your coach, who's one of the winning his percentage-wise coaches in the last 10, 15 years, he won at Vanderbilt. You got to have a shortlist. Barry Alvarez always talked about this. I always have a short list in my next coaches. It doesn't matter what my guy's doing.

I have a short list of people. There's no plan. You need to know what you're going to do if you fire James Franklin and you're at Penn State. Otherwise, you're going to end up getting carjacked and jacked Jacksonville. I need to hear more about it. Yeah, we're not, we're, we're going to need, I want to, I want to give Jay and Isaiah a chance to jump in here while things are still civil. But Ryan, we're not saving that for next summer. We're saving that for later in the show. So, Jay, your thoughts on Penn State. It's bad. It's, it's really bad. I saw a tweet where they said that Penn State only has five verbal commitments right now, a day before signing day. That's not good. And if you're Pat Kraft and you let a guy go and you don't have a plan and you're down on plan 10, 11, 12, but nothing's working for you? Does anybody think he might not have a job at some point in time?

Because if you mess this up and your money in football is starting to go away, at some point you're messing up the job of Plin State football. It's what Penn State's about. I don't think they'll have a coach tomorrow, Thursday, Friday. I don't think they'll have a coach probably until maybe Sunday or Monday of next week. And I don't blame James Franklin for trying to get those guys to leave Penn to not sign with Penn State to go to Virginia Tech. They want to be coached by him. Of course, he's going to do his job to get those players to be coached by him next year. Isaiah, should Penn State have just gone to try to bring Rich Rodriguez back to the Big Ten?

Is that where they're at? I don't know if I'd go that far, having experienced the Rich Rodriguez experiment myself. But, I mean, number one, to echo the last two's point, point. it's not just have a plan it's like no before you actually make the the firing who you're going to get especially midseason it you cannot make that change without knowing like we're doing this with the idea that we are getting this because otherwise you you might as well just keep him um but there are two options for him at this point um actually sorry i got a text earlier uh connor stallions actually turned down the

so he actually did send me that while I was recording a lot on Wolverines he's like I'm turning down the Penn State job but secondly I mean there's this hot coach that's been poaching guys all over the place I think you just got to look to Blacksburg and I think that they've got a really hot coach that you could bring in

and get 10 wins season proven winner yeah he knows how to do it in Happy Valley program builder guy has been at two power four stops Big Ten SEC, you make a compelling argument. Ryan, you mentioned some personal trauma earlier. Let's dive deeper into that. Can you tell us this story that you just happen to bring up on today's show?

Yeah, I'll give you the really quick one-minute version. So me and my buddy Hank, both from Wisconsin, both joined the Navy. We were down in Jacksonville. And being from Wisconsin, we just thought you could trust everybody because that's what you can do up in northern Wisconsin. We followed some people into a bad part of Jacksonville because they said they were going to help us, help us find a club. We were young. And eventually these guys got us out of the car, carjacked us pistol with me, took my shirt, drove off to my car, left us in the

middle of Jacksonville. So we ended up getting to a police station who got us close to our Navy base and we hitchhiked back to our Navy base. We ended up getting in a car with a true story. We ended up getting in a car with a rival gang member of the people that carjacked us hitchhiking. His name's Cap C. He gave me his number. And he said, if you want to to go back down to Jackson and kill all those mother efforts that stole your car. We can go do that right now. So we're in this moment at times like 2 a.m. heading back to our Navy base. Me and Hank are deciding if we're going to go get retribution for these guys who stole my Pontiac

Transam. We decided not to. I do it. I was like, I got insurance, man. I'm okay. But I kept C's number. So I had his number in my wallet for a long time. The police asked me about him.

Like, no, I don't know anything about anything. They ended up catching the guys a couple weeks later who did the whole like police lineup thing, identified them like yeah that's a dude that hit me with a gun um so yeah long story short i got carjacked and then i ended up hitchhiking with some gang members who were totally down with going down and like getting my car back wow that's a very long time so it was different different era for ryan but i don't uh you know they were you were you wearing red or were you wearing red or blue because that's kind of important to those guys no dude they took my shirt they took my car in shirt what was the shirt what was just like a white button up they stole my Pontiac

transam I sold that car pretty quickly afterwards because just it didn't feel right to drive it around after I got carjacked in and I was blamed the car for it like you let me down like it was supposed to be like a night rider or something this pre-carfax is that what you're saying wait that wasn't in the cars history description no involved in carjacking incident was carjacked they ended up getting a high-speed chase They ran out of gas. It was like, it was a whole thing,

man. But again, have a plan. That's as simple as this. Have a plan. Hold on. There was a car chase. That's how they got caught.

They found the car. The guys who stole it, ended up getting high speed chasing. And were the helicopters following the white bronco? Like, what was going down here? Paint the picture, Ryan.

Keep going. Keep going. I wasn't involved in the chase. I just know that they got in a chase when the police found the car. And then they ran out of gas. They straight up just died, killed it on the highway.

way. So that's how they got the dudes. The dudes ran out of gas in my transit. I named April. April was my car's name. You always name your cars. Duh. No. Yeah. Yeah. What do you mean? No. You always name your car. Yeah, absolutely. You always, always named your cars. But you name your boat. That name is dead to me now. Nothing will ever be called April again. That was a tragic, tragic night. Yeah, it seems like it's, it's fit to retire that one. When you brought up high speed chase, when I tell you, I have never been as disappointed in my life when you said that you weren't involved in. because I was so ready. I was in a different one.

That's a different story. So yeah, I was happening in high speech. Who are you? Who are you? How much of this happened in Minnesota? You hate that state more than you hate Florida. So I'll tell you really quick. I spent more of my life on probation in high school than off of it.

I had a parole officer. At one point my grades weren't meeting the average needed to maintain parole. So I altered my grades and gave them to my probation officer. I had to break in and like to give them to, my school grades and alter my GPA. The requirement was a C, which I wasn't hitting. So I had to- Well, high school's hard.

High school's hard for Ryan when you don't go. So there's a whole backstory there too, but I feel like I'm derailing us. Again, just have a plan. I will never look at you the same again. This is amazing, yeah. Have a plan, ladies and gentlemen. Okay.

Well, we have a plan for the rest of the show that now seems wildly un-interesting because we aren't going to go down Ryan's personal rabbit hole of growth and personal triumph and, you know, changing, changing grades like it's an episode of Icarly or something. All right. When we get back, we're going to recap rivalry week, which I'm looking forward to. Roman is not. Zach is not. Ryan is definitely not. Isaiah is not. And Craig and Jay are just here to smile at everybody. Okay. Let's do that when we get back on the locker. on Big Ten Squad. First, this episode brought to you by our friends at Fandwell.

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Fandle, the game moves fast, and so can you. NFL college football. They've got it all. Check out Fandual today. All right, continuing on here with the Lockdown Big Ten squad. Let's recap rivalry weekend. Jay, we'll start with you. And while you talk, I'm going to grab something real quick.

But what did you make of the game? Yes, yes, Roman. Come on, it had been. Can we make it fast? Yeah, Jay, take your time. Take your time. time. Jett, your thoughts on Ohio State taking care of Michigan in Ann Arbor? Well, you say take my time. I think about that 20 play drive that's been about 12 minutes between the third and fourth

quarters in that game against Michigan. It was just a fun game to watch. It was the first time since 2019 that Ohio State beat Michigan. And it was just a straight, I won't say beat down. But anytime you play your rival and you don't allow them to score a touchdown, that's something to really be very proud of. Because there was a time. when Ryan Day's tenure, the defense was trash. It was horrible. And all of a sudden, now you have the defense that's the best defense in the country, even better than last year's defense.

And I was expecting Bryce Underwood to be able to do a little bit more than he did. I understand also that George Marshall going down in that game drastically impacted how the offense could move. But Buckeyes won. Ryan Day had a plan. Also had a plan when the communication or the sidelines was cut off at some point in time. And, I mean, it's just most of the evolution of Ryan Day and how he's adapting to whatever may happen. And what's the lesson of today's Big Ten squad? Always have a plan. Always, always have a plan. Right, Ryan. Isaiah, how was Saturday's game received in Michigan land?

Not well. They're kind of on fire everybody mode, as you can imagine. That was great. I mean, it's kind of been percolating. Everyone could kind of feel what was probably going to happen. didn't help Michigan to not have basically all of its best players and two starting running backs, the starting fullback who's actually pivotal to Michigan, starting linebackers just disappeared, not injured, just disappeared essentially. But ultimately, I think it hurt Michigan fans the most to see Michigan get beat at its own game. So with that, like getting beat out by having all of these long drives against them, unable to stop the run, all of those types of things. Considering Sharon Moore's whole thing was we're going to smash, it's kind of like,

then what are we doing here? Because if you took away Ohio State's wide receivers in terms of like, if Michigan, I shouldn't say take away, but if Michigan's wide receivers were just going nuts against Ohio State, everyone would be looking rightfully at Ryan Day and be like, I thought that's what you were supposed to do. And yet, you know, that's kind of the case that way everyone's looking at is like the one thing that you're supposed to be able to be good at is the one thing that you couldn't do. So it's not being received well, but you know, it's a what is the new boss, same as the old boss, but right back there. Fire anyone at Michigan. That seems this seems like an overreaction to me, right? Well, there's also, you have to keep in mind,

Michigan's played every game close, including the bad teams, the ranked teams, they've just gotten absolutely dominated. Jay, I'll say it. Michigan got absolutely dominated in that game. I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't close. Ohio State could have scored 50 if it wanted to. It just chose not to. Craig, what did you make a rivalry weekend? Your biggest takeaways? Well, being in Indiana grad after we thumped Purdue 56 to 3 kept on top of our 66-0 beat down last year, that's 122 to 3 over the last two years. I'm pretty happy about that part of rivalry weekend. what about what about elsewhere and here that i was going for the big picture take away because beating per due i don't know if that's a big accomplishment in the big

10 i mean who who hasn't done that in the last two years well i think the perfect way to the michigan ohio state game is this absolutely ohio state did to michigan what michigan used to do that that's the best i've ever seen ohio state's offensive line to be honest with you yeah and are you in the camp in oregon that if washington they're beating you you would not be in the playoffs because I thought that was a low-key must-win game for the ducks against Washington this week. Yeah. And with the way the rankings came out, I think it's difficult to say because certainly if Washington had won the game, they didn't in case Roman forgot, just wanted to remind him there. I did. Thanks. I'll tell you a story when it's when it's

okay. If that if that had happened, then Washington's in the top 25 at nine and three. They might even be in the top 20, and then it's, well, it's a top 20 road loss. So you're going to drop them out for, I certainly going into the game felt you don't want to have the committee think about this stuff because what they're doing with Miami and Notre Dame right now is an absolute travesty. It's completely ridiculous. I think Oregon fans are first and foremost, always happy to beat Washington, especially in Seattle in the way they did. And secondly, I think they're happy to have guaranteed themselves a spot in the college football playoff and not leave anything up to the committee there. But Roman, by the way, your story is going to be compared to Ryan. So you better

make sure. Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's already lost to everyone except you because I know you are going to love relishing my pain. Also, speaking of having a plan, I am. This is the last thing I'm going to say on this show because Washington just got a massive flip ahead of signing day, which is wonderful. So, uh, I was not prepared for that. I knew it was coming, didn't know when. So this is great. Now I'm scrambling. Uh, Spencer, as you know, and as a lot of you know, I, I'm a credential member the Washington media. So at UW, you were allowed onto the field for the last eight minutes of the game. I walked on to the field from the far from the far side across from the student section. The very first play as I sat down to let everyone behind me get a view was third and

nine. And I was like, oh, man, the energy in here is tremendous. I love on the field. I remember when it was like this when when Washington, uh, you know, drives down and Roma Dunesay scores the game winning touchdown right in front of me like that was incredible and then i was like i they can definitely get a stop here and i see malik benson running wide open over the middle of the field and i was like he was very open that's that's a big play and then he just kept running and he yeah and then the two washington guys collided into each other because they couldn't catch up to him that i i legitimately could not see that for my view uh i saw i watch it on tv and i've seen the 20 times that i've watched the place since saturday yeah i'm sure you did uh but no the one thing

I will say is Washington showed a lot in terms of the young guys and the physicality that they played with in that game. And I did come away legitimately happy with where the program is going. The one thing that I will say is Demand Williams' performances in big games this year as the three guys at the bottom of the screen also know full well is that is the biggest thing that I want to see improve from next season. And a lot of that falls on Jedfish. And I want to see Jedfish continue to improve as a play caller and continue to get his young quarterback ready for some of these big moments because going 0 and 3

against top 25 teams and then also scoring 10 points at Wisconsin who also has a great defense you have to give them credit for that that is just not going to cut it with a junior quarterback as a sophomore I feel like it's one of those things where all right you know it's his first full season

as a starter you can get away with that a little bit that's not going to cut it next year and that's something that needs to take a big step forward and with that said Washington getting Jordan Clay awesome win see you guys later Okay. All right. Romans out on that note. Zach and Ryan, you guys may air your grievances and rivalry losses here. Either one of you can go first. I don't care about USC. They suck. They're garbage. The biggest win for us was getting a new coach. And since Mark isn't here, I don't have to suffer any consequences. So I think U.S.A. We can't hear him anyway. Well, it's okay. Muffled, jarbled anyways. So the big thing is UCLA, yeah, we had one more punishment to be suffered. They played.

well in the beginning of the game. They actually were leading at halftime of all the aggressiveness that Tim Skipper displayed in the previous games, fake punts, the fake field goal. Of course, Roman left, so that's a perfect time to drop it in there. Then anything that went right or wrong, UCLA did not actually be aggressive against USC, which kind of shocked me when they could upset USC, at least at times in the first half. Then they showcased why they were a three and nine football team when it went false start, false start, sack, false start, in like a five-play sequence. That was a embarrassed. If you go back and watch it, it was rough when the game was somewhat in the balance, but not. But UCLA getting Bob Chesney is the, you know, the big report of the week.

I've all but forgotten about it. So have all the UCLA fans struggling to get over that U.S. loss. It's bad. It's good news. The Bruins are heading up in the right direction, 26. Speaking of heading up in the right direction, Ryan Herring's locked on badgers. It'll be all right, man. Those second half of the season, turn things around. We were so close. We had hope. We had momentum. And then we played Minnesota and lost. I'll tell you just where I'm at right now, and I'll make this really quick, as I bought a Paul Bunyan replica axe several years ago.

That's obviously the trophy that Wisconsin, Minnesota plays for. So I display that when, in the background of my show, when we have the trophy. When the Badgers win the trophy, I get it displayed. It's gone so bad, I lost my trophy. I don't know where my axe is. It's been years, and we moved. And before the show, I'm yelling at my wife.

I'm like, not yelling. I'm like, hey, bam, have you seen my axe? Is it in the garage? I'm like, no, it's an axe. I know where that is if it's there. Check the basement. I don't see my axe. I've lost my axe.

Like, that's the level to where I'm at right now. I don't even have to be actually. Look out in the driveway. They're chopping wood. I went to get my splitting mall, right? Because I live in northern Wisconsin, so I can listen. I can split wood and milk a cow, all that good stuff up here. So I went to get my splitting mall in case we have to display that.

I needed a temporary stand in axe. But of course, that didn't matter because once again, the badger swapped quarterbacks halfway through the game and scored seven points. A minor victory, they didn't finish last in the nation and scoring. they're only 135th, thank you, Massachusetts. Yeah, so it is what it is, man. Another loss and the season, like Zach said, hopefully just uphill from here. So you can hang out with the crips in the blood,

you can milk a cow, and you can split wood in the woods. You're amazing. Dude, your resume is outrageous, outrageously good. Overcome personal tragedy. Capable of altering report cards. Split wood, be a dad.

I'll give you one more really quick. My very first locked on show was recorded in Guantanamo Bay. I was down in Gitmo doing work on them in the, uh, my first show for lockdown was in March and it was, uh, in years ago, I was down in Gitmo in the man camp, they called it, recording Lockdown Badgers, like so. No. Yeah, that was my first Lockdown show. Wow.

Does Zach know that? I don't think so. He does now? He does now. Oh, man, it's the squad of Ryan Harings. We're picking the Big Ten championship game when we get back. Indiana and Ohio State meet in Indianapolis on Saturday. The winner goes to the college football playoff as the number one overall seed.

The loser also goes to the college football playoff as the number two overall seed. So, like, I'm going to watch. the game. I think the only real storyline in this one is the optics of could Indiana beat Ohio State? That's it. Because Craig, I look at this game and man, we got a 12 team playoff. My honest reaction, who the hell cares? Well, number one, let's not get anybody hurt on either side. Number two, classic letdown spot for Ohio State coming off their win over Michigan and classic look-ahead spot for Ohio State because they've been to a national championship before.

What's this Big Ten title thing? Indiana's going to slide right in there in the sweet spot because this is the most important game in school history where there's 700 losses over 127 years. They're going to be all out. And I'll be the only one to say, I think Indiana's wide receiver room with Surrout Williams and Cooper every bit as good as Ohio State's receiver room.

There, I said it. Hoosiers win by four. Okay. Isaiah, go ahead, go ahead and make your pick. After seeing Ohio State, I really want to pick Ohio State. After having seen them do what they did to Michigan, and I agree with Craig. And I think I've been saying this to a lot of people in the last couple of weeks.

I think if Indiana was more of a name brand, like if it was Texas or, you know, even Oregon or something like that, you know, like I think that people would be looking at them differently, right? Like they're number two, whenever you listen to, you know, a lot of now, national shows and the other list in a series XM sometimes going to and from Ann Arbor for press conferences you just don't hear them talking about Indiana at all like they're just invisible I think that Indiana especially with the way Kurt Signetti gets that team fired up I think that they're going to have

the upset I agree I think it's a little bit of a let down oh whoa we got we got two for the Hoosers so far Ryan are you taking the favorite Buckeyes I came here thinking that would be the the guy on Indiana and everyone else Ohio State. I kind of think Craig and Isaiah make great points. I think it matters more for Indiana. I truthfully think it matters more for them than it does Ohio State. And Indiana's a wagon. They're great, man. They're going to Austin and do what they did. They're a tremendous team that doesn't get the national respect that they frankly deserve. I think Isaiah nailed that. I had Indiana winning as well. I just think it matters more to them.

Jay, we got a five-man panel here to pick the Big Ten championship game. And Ohio State doesn't have a scarlet O on the board yet. Are you going to change that? Of course I am. I'm not crazy. Hey, man, you picked Ohio State to lose the Rose Bowl in January, and that voodoo turned into one of the worst days of my life. Thanks for that, by the way.

I'm not doing that right now. Everyone keeps saying that this game doesn't matter to Ohio State, and I don't get that sense from the players of the coaches at all. Even before the season started, this was one of their goals, and they've worked all year to get there. The first goal was actually to win last year. week and they dominated Michigan. I'm not going to say they're going to dominate Indiana like they've dominated everybody else. I'm not going that far. But I do think in this game,

Ohio State's defense is the one thing that nobody has been able to overcome at all in any game this year. As good as Indiana's offense is, I don't believe they're going to be able to overcome what Matt Patricia is going to be able to do this weekend with the players that are there. Then you add in, I don't even know if Smith and Taylor are 100%. I know they were both battling lower body injuries. If they were 100%, it's a little bit different with the offense. But if it's not, they can control the ball. They literally had 40 minutes of offense, time of possession against Michigan this past weekend.

And if you took that one drive away, they would still dominate time of possession. I still think Ohio State is a team that cares and they care way more than anybody here or anybody around the country is thinking, they want to win the Big Ten title. They haven't won once since 2020. Actually, every loss to Michigan that knocks it out of winning the Big Ten championship. And so that's a sour point in Ryan Day's tenure.

A sour point in for these players, they all want the trophy. They all want that Victim title ring. And I 100% believe Ohio State is going to win this weekend. And I would not be shocked if they won by double digits. That wouldn't shock me at all. This defense is for real. I know what Mendoza has done.

He also almost coughed the ball up numerous times last week against Purdue. So, yeah, the margin of victory was big. He almost threw, what, four interceptions in that game. And so I still believe in Ohio State. That boy, Craig. I still believe in Ohio State. Stand up for your guy. I still believe that the running game and the office line that is playing a whole lot better right now.

I was shocked with how well they played against Michigan. That is a major reason why I think Ohio State. State wins on Saturday night. Yeah, I'm going with the Buckeyes here. I can't, I can't go against, I'll, I'd rather be proven wrong with someone beating them than picking against Ohio State with the way that they've played with how Julian Sane is playing. And I just want to close with this note. When I first threw it to Jay to make his game pick, do you guys notice how calm and cool

and collected he is, right? And he's just so mellow about everything, just got a national title last. year might have another one this year might not and if not well just go ahead and win it next year i think he's got the coolest confidence of anybody at this network right now just just throw it out so i'm on ohio state j's on ohio state craig isaiah and ryan all like indiana in the big 10 championship game that's it for this week's locked on big 10 squad we'll see you next time and until then hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day