For Ohio State fans clamoring for more night games in The Shoe, they’re getting a third night game this season Saturday night when the Buckeyes host UCLA. This is a rare matchup, but it will become more common with conference realignment and the Bruins joining the Big Ten.
There are numbers to back up how much of a home-field advantae the Buckeyes have in home night games, and we will take a look at them in this week’s “By The Numbers.”
Ohio State has played five home night games in the month of November and the team is 5-0 in those games, winning by an average of 34.2 points per game. The opponents: Illinois (2014), Minnesota (2015), Nebraska (2016), Rutgers (2020) and Michigan State (2023).
Ohio State is 27-5 all-time in night games at Ohio Stadium and 86-30 in all night games.
In six-plus seasons with Ryan Day as their head coach, the Buckeyes are 25-4 all-time in night games, including a 12-0 mark at Ohio Stadium.
The 2025 season is the third time for Ohio State to play three night games in a season, after previously having three such games in 2014 and 2022. Ohio State has played Ohio and Minnesota at night this year.
It took Jeremiah Smith just 25 games to catch 25 touchdown passes, breaking the previous record held by David Boston at 30 games. Smith also caught a career-high 10 passes at Purdue.
He ranks in the top seven in the country in five statistical categories, ranking second in touchdowns (10), sixth in receptions (65), sixth in yards (862) and 5th in ypg (95.8).
When Julian Sayin threw an interception at Purdue this past weekend, it snapped a streak of 173 pass attempts without an interception. It was Sayin’s first interception in Big Ten play, and his first since the Buckeyes’ win over Ohio in Week 3.
Sayin is coming off his sixth 300-yard passing game of the season vs. Purdue and his fifth game completing at least 80 percent of his passes.
Sayin is one of two quarterbacks in the last 30 years (Geno Smith at West Virginia in 2012) to have three games with at least 300 yards passing, three touchdowns, no interceptions and an 80% completion percentage.
In addition, Sayin has completed at least 85 percent of his passes (min. 10 attempts) in four different games (vs. Grambling, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Penn State), an Ohio State record and something that had only been done at Ohio State 14 times before.
This is the first time the Buckeyes and Bruins are meeting since 2001. The last time they played, the game was postponed a week due to 9/11. Jim Tressel was in just his second game as the Buckeyes’ head coach.
Interestingly, the series is tied 4-4-1. Neither team has won consecutive games in the series.
According to Big Ten Network Research, UCLA is just the third Big Ten team all-time to lose its first four games and then win its next three, joining 1963 Indiana and 2001 Penn State. The only power conference teams to do so in the BCS/CFP era are 2001 Penn State, 2021 Florida State, and 2025 UCLA.
UCLA’s win over then-No. 7 Penn State was its first win over an AP Top 10 team since Sept. 24, 2010.
