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One of the subplots to Saturday's game-of-the-season is Penn State's first-year starting quarterback, Drew Allar, who happens to be an Ohio native making his debut in the Horseshoe.
That doesn't mean the 6-foot-5, 240-pound sophomore has spent his time sorting through ticket requests.
"I don't know how many," Allar told reporters this week. "I've leaving that to my parents. I've got to be focused on the game."
A Medina, Ohio native who committed to Penn State before Ohio State put a late recruiting rush on, Allar grew up going to games at Ohio Stadium (about two hours) and still maintains a "group text" with many of his high school buddies.
"I was never just going to flip unless something major happened, and nothing majored happened," he said. "I was always all in with Penn State, and I still am."
Allar began forming a bond with Mike Yurcich, who at the time was at Texas. The Buckeyes had recruited Texas product Quinn Ewers, who is now with the Longhorns.
When Yurcich was hired at Penn State, Allar's recruiting stock started rising, in part due to the tutelage of his personal QB mentor, Brad Maendler.
"At Medina, that's where I got most of my confidence from," Allar said. "We were five wides and just slinging it."
Though Allar developed into a five-star recruit who was rated the top quarterback in the country, it took a while.
"I think a lot of people forget he was not this high-profile guy in the beginning," Franklin said. "Even when we started off, when we offered and started recruiting him, we thought he was really good and had a ton of potential, but he wasn't really viewed that way on a national scale yet."
Beau Pribula had already committed to the Lions, and both remained true to their word.
"I've always been a believer that you can really improve quarterbacks 90% of the time through their footwork and timing and their anticipation and pre-snap understanding of defense" Franklin said. "That's when the game starts to slow down. Brad's ability with Drew's commitment and work ethic, his transformation was crazy."
Allar has completed 118-of-181 (65.2%) for 1254 yards, 12 touchdowns and zero interceptions. He knows the Buckeyes' defense will be the toughest he's seen this so far this season.
"They're very talented on all three levels of the defense," he said. "It's definitely going to be a great challenge for us."
He said the strategy remains the same - don't turn the ball over.
"Just taking what the defense gives you and don't take unnecessary risks, being patient," he said. "We can say what we want about taking shots downfield, but I'm not going to throw it into harm's way or get one of our receivers lit up."
And while he wants to maintain the team's 1-0 mentality and routine, he also doesn't live in a vacuum.
"It feels a little bit different but nothing too crazy," he said. "We just want to focus on ourselves. We can't worry about outsiders or what the national media is saying. That won't help achieve our goals."