Ohio State and Indiana Are Both 3-0 in the Big Ten. By Mid-Afternoon, One of Them Won't Be.

Whoever loses this game has its first Big Ten loss. Both teams are 3-0 in the conference; Indiana is 6-0 overall and ranked fifth, Ohio State is 5-1 and ranked fourth (ESPN). That is the whole stakes sentence, and it kicks off at 9:00 AM Pacific.

The defenses are nearly twins. Ohio State allows a 34.9% success rate and Indiana 34.8%, and they create havoc on 18.7% and 19.1% of plays; CFBD's PPA ranks Ohio State's defense 11th in FBS and Indiana's 26th. The offenses are where the game separates. Indiana's is 2nd in FBS at +0.44 PPA per play, behind only Miami, and Ohio State's is 16th at +0.31. Set each against the defense it faces and CFBD gives Indiana a +0.51 per-play edge to Ohio State's +0.34.

The players carrying those numbers are on both sides. Indiana's Josh Hoover is 88-of-129 for 1,364 yards and 17 touchdowns. Ohio State's Julian Sayin is 116-of-163 for 1,772 yards, 17 touchdowns and 2 interceptions, and Jeremiah Smith has 916 yards and 11 touchdowns on 48 catches, 19.1 yards a reception. On defense, Indiana's Tobi Osunsanmi has 5 sacks to Kenyatta Jackson Jr.'s 3 for Ohio State (ESPN).

Ohio State is a 2.5- to 3-point favorite across nine books, 2.9 on the consensus (The Odds API); noon in Bloomington is 48°F with a 9 mph wind (Open-Meteo, WIS 1/7).

Provo at 5:30 local time looks like this: 71°F, a 4 mph breeze and a clear sky (Open-Meteo, WIS 0/7). That removes weather from the equation and leaves the units. Notre Dame is 6-0 and ranked second; BYU is 5-0 and ranked eighth, in what Field Level Media calls the first matchup of top-10 teams in Provo.

By CFBD's PPA, all four units are top-11 in FBS: Notre Dame's offense is 3rd (+0.39) and its defense 4th (-0.15), and BYU's offense is 11th (+0.33) and its defense 8th (-0.09). The matchup edges come out identical, +0.48 per play for each offense over the defense it faces. The 46.5 total (DraftKings; 47.5 at FanDuel and BetMGM) reads that symmetry.

CJ Carr is 102-of-144 for 1,378 yards, 16 touchdowns and 1 interception; BYU's Bear Bachmeier has 1,033 yards, 8 touchdowns and 1 interception through the air, plus 36 carries for 239 yards and 4 touchdowns (ESPN, Field Level Media). BYU's leading rusher, LJ Martin (344 yards), is expected to miss the game with a lower-leg injury, which makes Bachmeier's legs the ground game to watch. Notre Dame cornerback Leonard Moore (concussion) and tackle Jason Onye (ankle) are questionable (Field Level Media).

Yesterday's open question has an answer. Rain pushed Game 4 from Friday to tonight (ESPN reports Game 5 is still set for Sunday), and MLB's probable-pitcher listing now has Cleveland's Shawn Armstrong opposite Tampa Bay's Nick Martinez. Armstrong made 41 regular-season appearances for 35⅓ innings and no starts; his longest outing was 1⅓ innings and his highest pitch count 29. In the postseason he has 5⅓ scoreless innings over four appearances, the longest 1⅔ innings (MLB Stats API).

The rainout was a rest day for everyone else. The relievers used in Game 3 on Oct. 15 (Cleveland's Espino, Sabrowski, Gaddis and Smith for 49 pitches over four innings, Tampa Bay's Wells and Matz for 51 over four) have not pitched since. Those are pitch counts, not availability reports, but a bullpen game between two rested bullpens is a different problem from the one Friday's forecast posed.

Martinez arrives with a regular season of 31 starts, 180 innings, a 3.10 ERA and 22 home runs, and one postseason start: 3⅔ innings and 63 pitches against the Yankees on Oct. 7, ten days ago. His last regular-season start, on Sept. 27, lasted 2⅔ innings with four earned runs (MLB Stats API).

Friday's forecast called for 51°F and a 16 mph wind; tonight's is calmer at 45°F, 3 mph and dry (Open-Meteo, WIS 0/7; ESPN's page lists 49°F). Nine books have Cleveland -105 and Tampa Bay -111 on the consensus with a 6.5 total (The Odds API).