A 56-3 win over a team picked to finish near the bottom of the MAC, as a 50.5-point favorite, isn't a revelation. It's a receipt. Ohio State cashed the check Vegas and the preseason AP poll, where the Buckeyes opened at No. 1, already wrote. Ball State went 4-8 a year ago with an offense that could barely crack 16 points a game. This was homework, not a test.
But inside a laugher, there's usually one thing worth arguing about, and this time it's Jeremiah Smith deciding he didn't need the second half.
Eight catches, 151 yards, two touchdowns, all in the first half, one of them a 48-yard shot from Julian Sayin that helped Ohio State jump out 21-0 before Ball State's offense found its legs. By halftime it was 28-3 and Ryan Day had seen enough: Smith didn't play the second half at all. When your coach can bench you at halftime of a season opener and lose nothing, you're the toughest problem in the sport for a defensive coordinator to solve. Nobody's solved it yet.
The Heisman noise around Smith is already loud, and it makes sense, but I'm not ready to hand him anything in September. A wide receiver winning the award over a quarterback is historically close to a unicorn sighting, and this performance came against a MAC secondary that had no business being on the same field. Enjoy the highlight. Hold the trophy talk.
The other real storyline, quieter but maybe more important, is that Julian Sayin looked exactly like a guy in his second year as the starter, not a first-timer feeling his way through Week 1. He was clean. Ohio State's first-team offense didn't turn the ball over. After a shaky start he locked in and started dissecting the defense, finishing with three total touchdowns. That's not nothing given his 2025, when he was named the Big Ten's Freshman of the Year and was one of four Heisman Trophy finalists. The version of Sayin that showed up Saturday looked like a guy with zero interest in a sophomore slump.
What this game actually means: not much yet. Ohio State is 1-0, Ball State is 0-1, and both records will look different by October. Ohio State has a ranked opponent waiting in Week 2, and that game will say something real about this team's ceiling, not a 53-point win over a team that had no business keeping it within 50. Ryan Day picking up his 83rd career win, tying him for fourth in program history, is a nice footnote. It means more if he backs it up against actual competition.
Give Ball State its due in defeat. Brody Boehm banged home a 54-yard field goal on his first career attempt, tying the third-longest in program history, and fourth-year quarterback Keldric Luster made the first collegiate start of his career count, throwing the ball a lot more than his career numbers suggested he ever would. None of that changes the scoreboard, but in a 56-3 loss on the road at Ohio Stadium, in the program's first-ever trip there, a couple of Cardinals gave their fans something to point to besides the final score.
This game showed Ohio State is who the polls said they were, and it showed Jeremiah Smith might be better than that. Everything else, including whether this team is a real title contender, gets answered somewhere else on the schedule.
