‘He’s a Freak’: Curt Cignetti, Ryan Day Size Up the Ohio State-Indiana Rematch

Ohio State Buckeyes coach Ryan Day says last December has nothing to do with Saturday. Indiana Hoosiers coach Curt Cignetti says Ohio State has a receiver unlike anyone else in the sport. No. 4 Ohio State (5-1, 3-0 Big Ten) visits No. 5 Indiana (6-0, 3-0) at noon ET Saturday on FOX, a rematch of the 2025 Big Ten Championship Game that Indiana won 13-10 in Indianapolis. The Hoosiers went on to win the national title and bring a 22-game winning streak into Saturday. Here’s what both coaches said this week. Day said at his weekly press conference Tuesday that the Buckeyes addressed last year’s loss as a team Sunday and would again in that day’s team meeting. His message was that it doesn’t carry over. “Nothing that happened in the past has anything to do with what’s going on this weekend,” Day said. “We can learn from the past, and so some of the guys who played in that game can learn about all the reasons why we came up short, and that’s fine, and that’s good. But the focus has to be on right now, and that’s it.” Those reasons come down to situational football. Ohio State reached the red zone four times in December and scored one touchdown. “You’re not gonna win many games if you do that,” Day said. He added that Indiana “does as good a job as anybody in the country of winning situations.” Day also credited Cignetti for building a roster of players who fit his culture. He called Indiana a team “that hasn’t lost a game in a long time” and said a loud Memorial Stadium will force Ohio State to rely on a silent snap count. “It’s just that you have to stay focused for 60 minutes,” Day said. Cignetti’s Monday press conference kept coming back to one player: Ohio State wide receiver Jeremiah Smith. “They move Jeremiah around quite a bit. He’s taken it up a notch without question,” Cignetti said. “… There is no one like him right now playing at this level. … He’s a freak. We’re going to have to do a great job on him.” Smith is Ohio State’s career leader in receptions (211), receiving yards (3,474) and receiving touchdowns (38). He is two touchdown catches away from passing Braylon Edwards for the Big Ten record, and his 916 receiving yards and 11 touchdowns this season both rank second in the FBS. Indiana held him out of the end zone in December, though he still had eight catches for 144 yards. Cignetti called Ohio State “as strong a brand as there is in America” and described his own team as one “that’s developing still.” He also asked for help from the home crowd. “Oh, I’m glad we’re playing at home,” Cignetti said. “We really need our crowd to be loud and very involved. We got to give them reasons to be.” Both teams are unbeaten in Big Ten play. Ohio State’s only loss was 24-23 at Texas, and the Buckeyes are 3.5-point favorites in FOX Sports’ Week 7 picks. A win would give Indiana 23 straight, tying the second-longest winning streak in Big Ten history. Ohio State set that mark in 2014 and 2015. Saturday also puts quarterbacks Julian Sayin and Josh Hoover head to head. Big Noon Kickoff is live from Bloomington starting at 10 a.m. ET on FOX.