Kent State Golden Flashes at Ohio State Buckeyes

Ohio Stadium is supposed to be the easy part of the schedule this week, and on paper it still is. But the Buckeyes walk into Saturday's game carrying a 23-3 lead they didn't hold, a 24-23 final that Texas stole with 21 unanswered points in the fourth quarter, and a quarterback in Julian Sayin who stood in front of cameras afterward and said, flatly, "it starts with me."

Final	1Q	2Q	3Q	4Q	T
KENT	0	0	0	3	3
OSU	21	14	7	17	59

Nobody expects Kent State to be the team that tests whether Ohio State fixed anything. The Golden Flashes are a MAC program on the road against a roster built for the College Football Playoff, and the number on the board reflects exactly that kind of mismatch. This is about whether the Buckeyes look like themselves again, not whether the opponent can hang.

Kent State has had its own fourth-quarter drama, just with a happier ending. The Golden Flashes trailed Wofford 15-14 at halftime before quarterback Dru DeShields threw for one score and ran for two more, and Kent State closed the game on a 22-0 run to win 36-15. It's a small program finding a spark in front of its own crowd — a different animal entirely from what waits in Columbus.

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