College football can be a brutal sport.
Sometimes victory can be taken from you by a toe or two; other times, it comes at a serious cost. That was the case Saturday in Ohio State's 19-15 win over Indiana, a game neither team escaped feeling whole.
Indiana's 22-game win streak came to an end in an extremely painful manner. Down five late, on a fourth-and-4 at the Ohio State 27, Indiana opted to go for the throat instead of the first down. Josh Hoover dropped back, found a wide-open Nick Marsh down the sideline, and hit him in stride.
Josh Hoover finds Nick Marsh - BUT HE'S OUT OF BOUNDS pic.twitter.com/WCcs1mUefF
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) October 17, 2026
But that stride was debilitating. Marsh's left foot came down out of bounds, and he knew it immediately. The look on his face was heartbreaking.
That misery wasn't felt on the Ohio State sideline. Instead, it was relief, but with questions about what's to come. The primary reason Indiana had a chance to win the game late was that Ohio State's starting QB Julian Sayin was knocked out of the game with an apparent right arm injury earlier in the fourth quarter.
After taking a vicious hit from Indiana's Mario Landino, Sayin was seen running to the Ohio State locker room, right arm hanging by his side. He emerged a few minutes later with it in a sling, as the diminutive true freshman Luke Fahey filled in for him, and the Buckeyes offense ground to a complete halt.
The Buckeyes didn't manage a first down with Fahey in the game, so while they survived the trip to Bloomington, got revenge on the Hoosiers for last season's Big Ten Championship, and avoided a perilous second loss, there are suddenly concerning questions lingering around the program.
Ohio State coach Ryan Day said after the game, without going into specifics about the injury, that Sayin would be out "several weeks."
Ohio State QB Julian Sayin to miss 'several weeks' after suffering injury in win vs. Indiana Robby Kalland
The good news is Ohio State is off next week. The bad news is that when the Buckeyes return from their respite, they'll be on the road to face USC, and then it's a home game with Oregon. While both those teams have had their issues in 2026, the prospect of having to face both with a true freshman at QB is not one that should excite anybody in Scarlet and Gray.
If Sayin is out even longer, there are games left against a Northwestern team that's now 5-1 after beating Michigan State, as well as a road game against the Nebraska team that gave Indiana fits last week. Oh, and there's Michigan too.
While Buckeyes fans everywhere celebrate this win, they'll do so while awaiting an injury report that could determine the fate of their season.
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