Ryan Day‘s Ohio State Buckeyes are the hottest team in the country heading into Week 7 of college football, sitting at 5-0 and at the top of the AP Poll. The Miami Hurricanes and Oregon Ducks are close seconds. After losing to Michigan back in December, the Buckeyes have been on another level. Despite losing multiple starters on defense and replacing quarterbacks, Ohio State is still holding the top-dog tag. A college football analyst recently gave big props to the Buckeyes and Julian Sayin.

On October 6, Ohio State alum and national analyst Kirk Herbstreit hopped onto his namesake podcast and gave big praise to Ryan Day’s squad. Kirk started off by highlighting the Buckeyes and their quarterback: “Yeah, the other team that you know doesn’t really get talked about, if you want to look at the AP top 25, maybe because they’ve just been so good. I feel like Ohio State, after the Texas game, got put in a category of we’ll talk about them later. Meanwhile, Julian Sayin is balling — like just keeps getting better every single week.” Julian Sayin, the redshirt freshman, has been menacingly accurate for the Buckeyes each week, exceeding all preseason expectations and silencing any and every early-season doubts.

Sayin has been “balling” and showing major week-to-week improvement, particularly with his deep-ball accuracy. According to FanDuel, he’s already in the Heisman convo. The former five-star and Nick Saban’s highly touted recruit currently leads the country in completion percentage at 80.2%, completing 101 of 126 passing attempts for 1,313 yards, 13 touchdowns, and just 3 picks. In his recent game against Minnesota, Sayin completed 23 of 27 passes for 326 yards and three touchdowns. Wide receiver Carnell Tate was having a field day with nine receptions for 183 yards and a touchdown.

While Sayin is making strides on offense, the backbone of this Ohio State squad is its defense under new coordinator Matt Patricia. Herbstreit doubled down and gave big props to Ohio State’s defense, which replaced eight starters in the 2025 season: “And that defense with eight new starters, a new defensive coordinator. I think a lot of people — you go to practices, I know this team obviously pretty well — I thought there’d be some growing pains as they kind of gel together, even with Caleb Downs and Sonny Styles, two of the best players in the country on that side of the ball…”

“I would argue the Ohio State defense has been the most consistent of any, anybody on either side of the football as a unit. I haven’t seen them take a series off. Like, I don’t know what’s going on with those guys. They got eight new starters. But that unit, to me, has been the best, most consistent in the country.” The Buckeyes might have, pound for pound, the best defense in the country.

Their defense is playing like they’ve got their hair on fire and a chip on their shoulder, even drawing comparisons to historically great units. The Buckeyes lead the country in fewest points allowed, giving up only 5.5 points per game. Their total defense ranks eighth nationally, allowing 229.3 yards per game, and their pass defense is also eighth, giving up just 132 passing yards per game. The defense has been virtually impenetrable in the red zone, having yet to surrender a touchdown. They’ve held multiple opponents under 100 passing yards this season.

Does Illinois have any shot against the Buckeyes?

Illinois, under Bret Bielema, has grown used to being the home underdog, even when expectations say otherwise. Over the past two seasons, Bret Bielema’s squad has faced this role several times, often with surprising results. In 2024, the Illini entered home matchups against Kansas, Michigan, and Minnesota as underdogs, according to ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI), despite being ranked in two of those games. The Jayhawks were favored with a 67.9% chance to win, the Wolverines with 58.7%, and the Gophers with 52.7%.

But as the numbers showed, projections don’t always tell the story. Illinois flipped the script twice, defeating both Kansas and Michigan, the very opponents it was least expected to beat. Those upsets became defining moments of Bielema’s campaign, showing the team’s toughness and ability to punch above its weight at Memorial Stadium.

Fast forward to 2025, and not much has changed. When Illinois hosted the then-No. 21 USC, the FPI gave the Trojans a 72.9% chance to win, yet the Illini made that prediction look foolish with a decisive victory. Now, heading into a massive top-25 showdown against No. 1 Ohio State, Illinois once again faces long odds, with ESPN’s model giving them just a 17.7% chance to win.

Even so, the Illini are trending upward, climbing from No. 30 to No. 28 in the latest FPI rankings after a Week 6 win over Purdue. The metric projects Illinois to win 8.5 games this season and gives them a 19.8% chance of making the College Football Playoff, not bad for a program that keeps proving analytics wrong. Meanwhile, Ohio State leads the nation with an 89.9% chance to make the CFP and a 20% shot at a national title, setting the stage for a true David vs. Goliath clash.