After defeating Purdue on Saturday, Ohio State hits the road this weekend for the third time this season as the No. 11-ranked Buckeyes take on Minnesota.

For the Buckeyes there is no place like home. OSU has not played its sharpest games on the road, struggling at Illinois and losing at Wisconsin.

“We need to go on the road and play better than we’ve played on the road,” coach Jim Tressel said. “We head to Minnesota and it will be the first time for any of us on our team to ever have seen the stadium, let alone play in it, so that will be exciting for us. And it’s an evening prime-time game, and our guys will get excited about that.”

Although OSU maintains a 1-1 road record to this point, Tressel is content with his team’s effort away from the Horseshoe.

“We’ve played two pretty good teams on the road,” he said. “I haven’t looked at our two trips and said, ‘Oh gee, I don’t think they were focused or I don’t think they understood or they let the crowd get to them.’ Nothing like that, but do we need to execute better? For sure.

“It’s hard to win on the road. And do we thoroughly understand that? You’d think we would at this point, but we’ll find out when we take the road again.”

Despite the Gophers’ 1-7 record, Minnesota interim coach Jeff Horton said his team is not going to back down to the 7-1 Bucks.  

“What an opportunity for most of the nation, national TV, chance to step up, show what we’re all about,” Horton said. “Nobody giving you a chance to win other than inside this room.

“One thing I’ll promise you, we’ll go out there and play hard.”

Injury report

Tressel said defensive back Christian Bryant, suffering from a foot infection, will likely be out for at least six weeks following his release from the hospital, expected to be this week.

Senior captain and linebacker Ross Homan is continuing to make progress with his foot injury, but Tressel said he will not play in Minneapolis.

Adding to the lengthy list of injuries to the OSU secondary is the loss of redshirt freshman cornerback Corey Brown, who suffered a knee injury in the fourth quarter against Purdue. Tressel said Brown will miss the remainder of the year as well as next spring.

Linebacker Dorian Bell will likely remain out for the third straight week against Minnesota after suffering a concussion against Indiana.  

Golden Gopher gunslinger

At No. 5 in career passing yards in Big Ten history with more than 10,000, Minnesota senior quarterback Adam Weber is not shy about throwing the ball. A four-year starter, Weber brings plenty of ability and experience to the Golden Gopher offense and could be a handful for the Silver Bullet defense.

“I think sometimes people think it was kind of ho‑hum that he threw for 10,000 yards because they said he still hasn’t won enough games,” Horton said. “Playing football long enough in the Big Ten to be one of the five guys that have done it, to me that’s pretty special. I don’t care what kind of teams you have out there, you still have to go out there and play. A lot of people on teams that have struggled haven’t done that. I think that’s a compliment to him.”

Tressel said Weber’s composure has not wavered, even with the recent firing of Minnesota coach Tim Brewster.

“He’s a competitor,” he said. “You can just hear in his comments that he doesn’t want to hear about coaching transition or this or that. This is still the 2010 Minnesota Golden Gophers and still the same team it was at the beginning of the year who has a passion to get some good things done. Through his leadership, you can be sure that they’ll never stop, and that’s the kind of leader that you want to have.”

‘Boom’ steps up

Junior running back Dan “Boom” Herron has established himself as OSU’s lead running back, carrying the bulk of the load in the last four contests.

Tressel has taken notice of his running backs’ increased production. He said it is Herron’s electricity that allows him to be successful and his play is infectious.  

“We always talk about an impact player being someone that can just do their job, but they can raise everyone else up,” Tressel said. “We don’t even know for what reason. He just has a presence. We always talk about good leaders have what we call a sense of impending greatness. If you stick with me, something great is going to happen. ‘Boom’ has that presence.

“You can be an electric guy and really someone that people want to follow, but they’ll stop following you if you don’t produce, and ‘Boom’ Herron produces.”

Special teams help for a change

Used to being on the wrong end of special teams blunders this year, the Buckeyes switched roles Saturday as they were the beneficiaries of several Boilermaker special teams miscues.

OSU opened the game with great field position after Purdue kicked off out of bounds. Later, OSU recovered a fumble off a muffed punt.

“I thought Purdue helped us by kicking it out of bounds, and that just is another reminder of the impact that the special teams have, not just in the simple field position, but in the emotional flow of the game,” Tressel said. “That gave us great field position. Now we’re in a situation where we’re 60 yards away from points rather than maybe 80, and I think your percent chance of scoring is maybe 20 to 25 percent higher just between those two field zones.”

Tressel emphasized the importance of special teams play on the road.

“Special teams, we always say, is the key when we go on the road,” he said. “And so we’ve got to make sure that despite the fact that we’ve had to go with a lot of different lineups due to injuries in the linebacker and DB (defensive back) areas, we’ve got to get better at special teams, especially on the road. It’s a huge impact. Purdue found that.”