This is the Depth Dossier: the Ohio State Buckeyes, Week 7.

Ohio State found a way to win the turnover battle and the football game, but it may have lost its quarterback doing it, beating Indiana 19 to 15 and snapping a 22-game Indiana win streak in the process.

Let's start with how it actually played out. Quarterback Julian Sayin was sharp while he was in there, completing 15 of 29 passes for 235 yards and two touchdowns, including a 38-yard fourth-down strike to wide receiver Jeremiah Smith right before halftime. But Sayin left in the second half with a right arm injury and didn't return, which forced freshman Luke Fahey into relief duty and flattened the offense down the stretch. It didn't end up mattering. Ohio State's defense forced two fumbles in the third quarter, Indiana missed two field goals, and the Hoosiers' last chance at a go-ahead score sailed incomplete out of bounds.

Now, the stat that really should have been impossible. Indiana came into this game having not lost a fumble in 1,473 snaps, the longest streak like that in the country. Ohio State broke it twice in the same quarter. Freshman cornerback Jay Timmons forced the first one, snapping the streak outright, and defensive back Earl Little Jr. recovered a second fumble that set up a Buckeye field goal. Linebacker Jaylen McClain added a strip-sack on top of that. None of that jumps off a simple turnover count, but it's the biggest reason this game didn't go the other way.

Indiana's special teams gave points back just as directly, missing a short field goal in the first half and a long one in the second. That's points a team hanging around all night couldn't afford to leave out there.

Time of possession favored Ohio State, 32 minutes to 28, which tells you this was more of a field-position grind for most of the night than the shootout both of these top-five offenses are capable of. The fourth-down touchdown to Smith right before half was both the Buckeyes' best offensive sequence and their biggest gamble of the night, and it paid off exactly when they needed it to.

And then there's the finish. With Sayin out and the offense thrown off its rhythm, it was the defense that had to go close out a one-score game on the road against a team that hadn't lost in a long time, and it did exactly that on the final incomplete pass.

Now to the part that'll shape the next few weeks. Head coach Ryan Day said Sayin is out several weeks with that right arm injury. That hands the keys, at least for now, to Fahey, who got his first real extended action running this offense in the second half of a top-five game. How much the offense changes around him, in pace, play-calling, and how much it leans on the run, is the biggest open question in Columbus right now, and nothing about his role beyond being forced into duty has been confirmed yet.

Smith's four catches for 68 yards look modest by his standards, but that 38-yard fourth-down touchdown was the biggest offensive moment of the game, and it keeps padding his climb up the Big Ten's career receiving record books. With Sayin out, how defenses choose to attack Smith against a backup quarterback is worth watching.

On defense, both Timmons and Little did enough to matter beyond the box score, a streak-snapping forced fumble for one and eight tackles with a fumble recovery for the other. Both are names to watch for bigger roles in the secondary if this defense keeps getting asked to close games out.

The obvious thing to watch next week is who actually starts at quarterback, and how much the offense gets rebuilt around Fahey while Sayin recovers.

This was the depth dossier. For everything college football, be it depth charts, data or dossiers, head over to C F B Depth dot com. We will be back next week. This was an AI-generated podcast from content developed by real human beings passionate about college football.