3 Ohio State Position Groups That Must Dominate Against Texas

In what might be the highest anticipated early matchups of the college football season, Ohio State will travel to Texas this Saturday looking for a sweep of the home-and-home series they have had for 2025 and 2026.

Both teams started their season with whopping victories, with the Buckeyes handling Ball State 56-3 and Texas taking care of Texas State 59-7. We saw big performances from both sides, but both sides also stayed cautious knowing what loomed in Week 2.

Being possibly the most talented team Ohio State sees this season, this matchup will present many tests for a lot of position groups that are still looking to prove themselves.

Not only will they need to prove themselves in this matchup, but also perform at a high level if Ohio State wants to come out victorious.

Heading into this top-5 bout, here are the three position groups that must have stellar games against Texas on Saturday.

Cornerback

The returning duo of Devin Sanchez and Jermaine Mathews came into this season with a lot of positive discussion about their growth and stellar play in the offseason, and it showed quickly.

The two alongside freshman nickel Jay Timmons combined for 5 pass breakups and helped hold Ball State to only 120 yards of total passing offense in the game. It was a very solid start to the year, but they have a completely different matchup coming for them this week.

The Texas passing offense, led by early Heisman contender Arch Manning, started off the season hot finishing with 360 yards and four touchdowns. Cam Coleman and Ryan Wingo, who both Sanchez and Mathews will see a lot of Saturday, combined for 191 of these yards and three of the scores.

This secondary returned the most production from last season, and the defense will lean on them to be the most consistent group on it this season, and especially in this game.

The trio of Sanchez, Mathews and Timmons look poised to have good games in this matchup, but face a tall task ahead to keep the production of Manning, Coleman and Wingo to a minimum.

Quarterback

In last year’s matchup, Ohio State was able to send Texas back home with a 14-7 victory, but with a pretty unproductive pass game.

The big highlight of the game was of course a 40-yard bomb from quarterback Julian Sayin to Carnell Tate, but outside of that score Sayin went 12-19 for only 86 yards.

To be fair on Sayin, it was his first collegiate start and Texas was not an easy task to solve to begin your college career. Yet, after only allowing 188 yards of passing offense last week with an interception, the Texas defense looks to be ready to make it a hard day for the sophomore Heisman contender.

His ability to find Jeremiah Smith will also be a big headline in this game, as Smith only has 46 yards against Texas in the two games he has seen them in his career at Ohio State.

Defensive Line

A new-look Buckeye defensive line with three new starters proved how dominant they can be in stopping the run Saturday, and that same kind of performance will be needed against the Longhorns.

They helped stifle the Ball State offense to only 45 yards rushing, giving defensive coordinator Matt Patricia his 10th game of holding an offense under 100 yards rushing in only 15 games as the coordinator.

Even with this stellar performance though, the defense only produced one sack, which was not until the fourth quarter from backup end Epi Sitanilei.

Ohio State did manage a victory only taking down Arch Manning once last season, but putting as much pressure on him to not give him time to find his speedsters downfield is vital.

This group’s continued success in the run game and getting to the quarterback will be vital to an Ohio State victory this Saturday.

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