Good morning, Bucknoters. Welcome to the Buck Nuts Morning 5.

You're on Monday, November 22, 2021. I am Dave Vittel. I am happy to be joined by Steve Hellwagon.

Steve, the week of the game has arrived after a one-year absence. So weird still that they didn't play last year.

Buck eyes open at seven and a half point favorites over the Wolverines. Steve, what are your overall thoughts on this matchup?

Well, it is just amazing that we're at this point of the season already. This thing has kind of flown right on by.

And I wouldn't say that this crept up on us, but I think there was a lot of attention paid to last week's game against Michigan State because it was the last home game and it was a top 10 matchup and it's rare that Ohio State would have a top 10 matchup the week before it plays Michigan and another top 10 matchup.

I don't know how many times that's happened in the last 20, 25 years, whatever. But the Buck eyes definitely took care of business like it's Michigan State.

It would be hard to have played them a better first half with scoring seven touchdowns on seven possessions and not allowing any touchdowns by Michigan State.

So they go into this playing their best football the year. It seems like, but so does Michigan. I mean, they went out to Maryland and just decimated Maryland 59-18.

And so both teams are coming into this game on a high note, very confident. There are very few question marks.

And I was sitting there watching the game and they asked me, what do you think the line for the Ohio State Michigan game would be? And I said, oh, probably eight.

And then as we were sitting there watching the high state score one touchdown after another, I said, maybe it's going to go up to 11 or 12 just based on what we're seeing here.

But for whatever reason, it is seven to half eight points, whatever it is. And, you know, if Michigan, in my mind, it comes down to one thing. If David, a job, an Aiden Hutchinson can get to CJ Stroud and impact him and maybe not even sack him, but mess up his vision, pressure him and also get a few sacks.

I think Michigan's got a chance. But if Ohio State's offensive line allows CJ Stroud to stand back there, just throw and throw and throw and throw and throw, like we've seen in recent weeks.

I think they could forget it because I don't know anybody. I don't think Georgia can stop this offense. I don't think Michigan can stop it. I don't know. I have a hard time wondering who could.

I kind of leads into my next question. I mean, where do the Buckeyes have the biggest advantages over this Michigan team?

Well, Ohio State's offensive line gets Michigan State's defense of line is an incredible matchup. I mean, we laid it out there a job.

And Hutchinson, you know, I think Ojalo has 10 sacks and Hutchinson has nine. So that'll just tell you the impact those two guys have had for Michigan's defense.

As we all know, Jim Harball revamped his coaching staff. And I saw a graphic on the Fox broadcast. Everybody on the coaching staff is between 34 and 44 years old. So he went out and got some go getters and they have injected some life into this program.

And they're much improved on both sides of the ball. Well, obviously in any even getting a first down would be an improvement over whatever that was on the field last year.

So they've done much more than that. Obviously they're 10 and one fourth time in seven years under Jim Harball that they are going to have a 10 win season.

They've not had an 11 win season 2000 since 2011, having won the big 10s of 2004. So they're in position to break through haven't beat Ohio State since 2011. They're in position to do a lot of things that haven't been done under Jim Harball.

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