Oklahoma Wants Revenge As It Heads To Ohio State

J.T. Barrett will take center stage as his Ohio State Buckeyes host Oklahoma this Saturday (NewsOK)

  
 Now the real fun begins.

 After easy wins over their first opponents, Ohio State and Oklahoma face off in a top 10 contest sure to impact the College Football Playoff race. The Sooners are looking for revenge after the Buckeyes came in to Norman last year and walked out with a 45-24 victory.

 The Sooners are working on an 11-game winning streak, the nation's longest -- the last loss being against the Buckeyes.

 Oklahoma blasted UTEP 56-7 in its opener, while OSU took a bit of time to get going before pulling away from Indiana and winning 49-21. 

 The stakes may be high -- ESPN GameDay will broadcast from Columbus, and the game is a national telecast, Saturday night at 7:30 -- but Sooners quarterback Baker Mayfield wouldn't want it any other way.

 "You're either born with it or you're not," Mayfield said. "Without pressure, there's no diamonds."
  
 Buckeyes coach Urban Meyer is one of Mayfield's biggest fans, and knows that the OSU defense will have to be on high alert Saturday night. Indiana was able to throw for 410 yards against Ohio State's young secondary, and even though he's breaking in new receivers and running backs, Mayfield has enough experience to take advantage of anything he sees as a weakness.

 "What I love about Baker, he's a competitive guy," Meyer said.

 Mayfield went 19-of-20 with three touchdown passes against UTEP, his favorite target being junior tight end Mark Andrews, who finished with seven grabs and 134 yards. Given how many issues Ohio State had with the Indiana passing game, it wouldn't be surprising if Mayfield's eyes got as big as saucers when he takes the field.

 Meyer knows the challenge ahead of his young secondary.

Baker Mayfield (NewsOK)

 "We have to knock some balls down," Meyer said. "The one thing about IU, that quarterback is extremely accurate, the receivers made a bunch of great catches. But we have got to knock some more balls away."

 One way to keep Mayfield from going crazy is to dial up the pass rush. The Sooners have one of the best left tackles in the country in Orlando Brown, and he will be in charge of stopping Sam Hubbard and Nick Bosa from imposing their will. Bosa played 59 snaps against Indiana, and got better as the game progressed, so Riley knows that his linemen will need to be on point if the Sooners offense is to succeed.

 "They're definitely one of the top groups we'll see among the defensive front," Riley said. "Their depth and explosiveness is very impressive. These guys do a great job schematically. Their coaches are very good, they're very, very sound." 

 It will be almost 40 years to the day -- Sept. 24, 1977 -- that Oklahoma last came to Columbus, and to call that game memorable is doing a disservice to memorable games. Oklahoma, which had Billy Sims, Kenny King and Elvis Peacock in its backfield, took a 17-0 first quarter lead before the Buckeyes were able to gain their bearings. A Sooners field goal made it 20-0, and ABC made the decision to switch away to regional coverage.

 It was the nation's loss as OSU scored twice within a minute, the second coming on a Rod Gerald scamper, and it was suddenly 20-14 at halftime. The Buckeyes stayed hot and took a 28-20 lead into the fourth quarter, but Oklahoma trimmed it to 28-26 with a touchdown and failed two point conversion. Oklahoma recovered an onside kick, marched to the Buckeyes 23 yard line with six seconds left. Sooners kicker Uwe von Schamann split the uprights, giving his team a thrilling victory.

 While Mayfield receives most of the buzz, the Buckeyes have J.T. Barrett, and there is no one with whom Meyer would rather go into battle.

 "He's a very accurate passer," Meyer said. "I made this comment -- the accuracy of the quarterback has to do with the timing and relationship he has with the receivers. If he's expecting a receiver to come back and the receiver goes there, it may look like it's the quarterback's fault. We had some accuracy issues (last season) with J.T., but also with the receivers. It's much better now."

 The Buckeyes will have the services of sophomore running back Mike Weber, who sat out the opener with a hamstring issue. In his stead, freshman JK Dobbins ran for 181 yards on 29 carries, and showed excellent change of direction and the ability to get skinny in traffic. Meyer wasn't sure about the workload each would have, but that's a pleasant dilemma.

 The Buckeyes have lost just one non-conference home game under Urban Meyer, 35-21 to Virginia Tech in 2014.