COLUMBUS, OHIO -- The Gophers are even more shorthanded heading into Saturday night's game against No. 1 Ohio State. Three new unspecified injuries to report:

LT Ben Lauer (out), DT Steven Richardson (out) and G Isaac Hayes (out).

That means the Gophers are down both of their starting defensive tackles (Richardson and Scott Ekpe) and three of their starting offensive linemen (Lauer, Brian Bobek and Josh Campion).

Foster Bush will start at left tackle, with Jonah Pirsig at right tackle. And the starting defensive tackles will likely be Andrew Stelter and Yoshoub Timms or Robert Ndondo-Lay.

Redshirt freshman Jared Weyler is on the trip as a backup guard, and sophomore Chad Fahning is a backup offensive tackle. Ted Stieber is another offensive linemen on the trip. Weyler is from Dayton, Ohio, and Stieber is from Akron.

TAMING THE 'SHOE

Colleague Chip Scoggins ranks Ohio Stadium as the best football venue in the Big Ten. This is my first visit here, and I have to agree (though I have yet to visit Happy Valley).

The Gophers haven't played at the Horseshoe since 2009. Interim coach Tracy Claeys said there was some thought to having the team stop by the stadium on Friday to get acclimated, but the Gophers decided against it. They haven't done that -- visited the stadium on the eve of the game -- since 2012, at UNLV.

One key for the Gophers, will be getting their bearings, and not letting the noise from 105,000 fans rattle them. This is where junior quarterback Mitch Leidner's experience comes in handy, as he led the team to wins last year at Michigan and Nebraska.

This Ohio State team, however, is considerably better than the 2014 Michigan and Nebraska squads.

In today's paper, I pieced together clues to help describe the kind of head coach Tracy Claeys is becoming. Here is The Call, with a breakdown of the matchups and my prediction.

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