[Sluss]

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NW is a team fairly similar (but not as good as ND).

NW 48-7
Iowa 31-6
Indiana 41-10
Minnesota 45-31 (was a 45-24 until garbage time)
Illinois 40-2

The odds of Ohio State getting blown out in this one are extremely slim. ND's defense is very suspect, and this isn't a typical "run the ball" OSU team. In critical games, they have let teams march down the field and score near the end of the games virtually unchallenged. This is probably the most balanced OSU offense I've seen since 98, and I don't see them struggling to put up fewer than 28 points against the Irish.

In all honestly, If you told me that someone wins by 5 points, I'd be much more worried than if you said someone wins by 14+. ND is pretty much a one-dimensional passing team (e.g. Northwestern, Michigan State). The tough thing Weis is going to have to do is figure out how to play defense. He won't win a shootout.

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This should be an odd argument because I've watched 5 OSU games this year (Texas,PSU, MSU,NW and Mich) and every ND game.

What I gaged in those games was that OSU tries to get the ball to Ginn who I think was better last year than this year and seems to be living off of reputation. Santonio Holmes is a good reciever, but he seems to disapear for prolonged periods of time during the game. When they are playing well they are dominating the line of scrimage with runs by Pittman and Smith. Smith played very well against Michigan and has been pretty solid in most of the games I've seen and his stats look good.

I know that as a Buckeye fan you don't know what balanced means, but they ran the ball 470 times and attempted passes 274 times. That's a ball control running team. When they need to, they throw, but when they are in control they run.

You can call ND a passing team, but certainly not like Northwestern. They ran the ball 463 times this year and attempted 409 passes. That looks like balance to me.

Antonio Pittman finished the regular season with 1195 yards/5.4 YPC/15 rec 155 yards and 6 TDs

Darius Walker finished the year with 1106 yards/4.7 YPC/36 rec 314 yards and 8 TDs

FWIW, I think Weis would love to get into a shootout. The Irish certainly have more weapons and have been much more consistent on offense.

I think alot of people forget how much the Notre Dame defense slowed down USC. Leinart had a horrible game and so did White. It was all Bush all of the time. Their defense is very underated. It has most of it's problems because of the score of games. When your offense is scoring 38 ppg your defense isn't playing alot of clamp down D.

Weis is very good (ask Tom Brady) at breaking down an oposing teams defense if given an extra week (or in this case a whole month) to come up with a specific game plan he will do it.

What does the OSU defense do poorly? Is it defend short passes? Is it the deep ball? Is it stretch plays? Running up the middle? Every defense has a weakness Weis is the best in all of football, pro or college, at finding and exploiting it.