I've done this for a few years now to mixed reviews, but for the stat nerds and the 'crootin star-gazers, here's the first look at 2021 talent match-ups. 

Please note, all talent stats are collected from the 247 composite.  Starters are best guesses based on some light research.  No true freshman are currently in the line-up on either side.  I'll plan to update as the season progresses.

Before you feel the need to comment about how stars don't matter, we all know Chris Olave is good.  Check the bottom for a bit of interesting data on how much "star talent" matters.

Starting Line-up Comparison

Team overall talent stats are very similar to last year's, a year in which ttun *arguably* ducked The Game.  Going back to the last time the teams actually played, OSU is rated 1.1 higher than 2019, and ttun is rated .8 lower.  This means the ratings gap has grown by 1.9

Now for some positional match-ups:

O-Line v D-Line

This is interesting as the only positional match-up you'll see ttun with the advantage in is a .08 advantage with their D-line vs our O-line.  Interesting for a couple reasons: 1. because OSU's rating is actually dropped significantly by Thayer Munford, who is arguably our best lineman, and 2. our #6,7 and probably 8 lineman are all rated 1st or 2nd positionally in their respective draft classes.  This is a good indicator that the low rated players that are starting are significantly outperforming their high-school rating.

Also of note: our D-line v their O-line is the largest talent disparity on the field at 7.82

WR v DBs

This isn't that close.  Nor have the passing game statistics been the past few meetings.

LBs v RB/TE

Also not real close.

Talent Based Score Prediction:

A few years ago, 247 started putting out "team talent" statistics each season.  They somehow add up their player rankings on each team to create a team rank.  Using that data each year since 2015, I created a trendline and equation for how the score differential correlates to the team talent ranking differential.

- First, to argue with the people who say recruiting stars are totally meaningless, there is decent correlation in the data above.  Correlation isn't causation, but I'm not trying to argue cause here.

- Up to last year, the largest differential in the team talent rankings was 9 spots different, which happened in 2019.

- Last year and this years' talent rankings both differ by 14, 5 spots greater than any year there has been a game since the service started tracking this.

- If you put the differential into the equation, it estimates the Buckeyes win this year's installment of The Game by 52 points.

Based on this data, my final score prediction: OSU - 69, ttun - 17