Ohio State Football: Why Purdue Deja Vu Won't Happen to the Buckeyes

Ohio State's recent excursions to Ross-Ade Stadium at Purdue University have been less than happy hunting grounds.

In their last four trips to West Lafayette, the Buckeyes are just 2-2 including a stunning 26-18 loss two years ago which was the lowest point of the season by far.

Ohio State was dominated up front by dominant DE Ryan Kerrigan, and Joey Elliott played a near flawless game for Purdue. The Buckeyes were their own worst enemy, committing five turnovers and nine penalties to the Boilermakers' one flag.

That loss almost derailed a Big Ten title, but the Buckeyes found the resolve to make it to Pasadena.

This time around, their immediate future hangs in the balance.

And the good news for Ohio State is this Purdue team is nowhere near as good as the one they saw two years ago.

Kerrigan is gone, and outside of Gerard Gooden, there aren't too many players on the Purdue defense that should create issues.

The big difference this time is that most of the players on this roster were a part of the loss and remember it very vividly.

As much as they don't want to say it will matter, they should be heading into this game with bad intentions and an attitude of being physical and aggressive for 60 minutes.

This is one the players want badly.

With the firing of Joe Paterno and the chaos at Penn State, the door is wide open for Ohio State to win the Leaders Division and make it to the inaugural Big Ten Championship Game.

The formula is simple: win out and PSU must lose to either Nebraska or Wisconsin.

That seems simple in theory, especially considering the fact that Ohio State has not lost a November game since 2007 when they were upset at home by Illinois.

But if games were decided on theory, there wouldn't be any fun to the game.

Ohio State does have a large amount of momentum coming into Saturday's road trip, with Dan Herron running the ball with force and Braxton Miller growing every week.

If the defense is able to shake off the rust that they showed against Indiana last week, OSU can get out of Purdue with a much-needed road win, something they've only done once all season.

Most importantly, it seems that lately the Buckeyes have been dominant running the football as they have three runners with over 400 yards on the ground.

The passing game is almost non-existent, but when you can run the ball like OSU has been able to do, it's more of a tone-setter than anything else.

With that in mind, it's hard not to imagine Ohio State wanting to run the ball at this Purdue defense all day long behind their senior back and freshman QB.

Herron has shown such determination and vision, and Miller is so quick that he breaks more ankles than most NBA players do at times.

But Ohio State on Saturday needs to stick with this plan of running the ball because of its success in the past few weeks.

They have their identity, now they just need to exorcise one more demon on the way to Indianapolis. And that demon lies around 100 miles north of Indianapolis, at Purdue.

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