What decides Ohio State at Texas: Simmons on Sayin, and who has Jeremiah Smith

Ohio State and Texas kick off at 7:30 p.m. ET Saturday at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, on ABC. The Buckeyes are No. 1 in the AP poll. The Longhorns moved up one spot to No. 4 this week.

Neither opener said much. Ohio State beat Ball State 56-3 and Texas beat Texas State 59-7, and both starting quarterbacks were done before the fourth quarter. Julian Sayin left midway through the third. Arch Manning left in the third with Texas ahead 42-7.

The stat lines were clean anyway. Sayin went 21 of 25 for 320 yards and three touchdowns and scored on a 3-yard run. Manning threw for 305 yards and four touchdowns, ran 60 yards for another and threw one interception in the first half. Jeremiah Smith caught eight passes for 151 yards and two scores against Ball State, then sat out the second half.

The rematch is the story in both buildings. Ohio State won 14-7 in Columbus on Aug. 30 of last year, a game in which Texas had 133 more yards of offense and one touchdown to show for it. Manning finished with 170 passing yards and an interception. Sayin had 126 yards, a touchdown and no turnovers. The January before that, Ohio State beat Texas 28-14 in the Cotton Bowl semifinal on its way to the national title. Texas is 6-9 against top-10 teams under Steve Sarkisian.

Manning, in comments carried by The Associated Press this week, said there were not a lot of good memories from a year ago and that he hoped to have a good game this week.

Start with Texas's edge rush against Ohio State's line. The AP expects Colin Simmons, the All-American edge, to test Sayin on Saturday. Simmons had one tackle and half a tackle for loss against Texas State, which is not a trend. The Texas defense as a whole had two sacks and eight tackles for loss.

Then there is Smith against the Texas secondary. In two games against Texas, Smith has seven catches for 46 yards and no touchdowns. Sarkisian, at his Monday press conference in Austin, put the assignment in one sentence. "We better know where No. 4 is on every snap."

Availability is a guess this week. Big Ten protocols eliminated player availability reports for nonconference games, so Ohio State issued none before Ball State and will issue none before Texas. Qua Russaw, the Alabama transfer defensive end, dressed for the opener and never played. Ryan Day said Tuesday he expects Russaw to have a full week of practice. Without him, Kenyatta Jackson led the Buckeyes with seven pressures. Texas freshman running back Derrek Cooper, third on the depth chart, is in a boot and out after getting hurt in the opener.

The Card, this site's picks product, had the game open at pick'em and listed Texas -1.5 with the total up from 47.5 to 48.5 by Wednesday afternoon (DraftKings via ESPN, generated Sept. 9 at 4:03 p.m. ET). The Austin American-Statesman listed Texas by 1.5 with a total of 49.5 on Thursday.

Sarkisian was asked Monday what the two losses had in common. "The biggest common thread in both games was we essentially played behind."