Buckeyes’ offense offensive
Shortcomings may possibly keep Ohio State outside of Playoff picture
Imagine an alternate universe in which Ohio State doesn’t score
59 in the Big Ten championship game three years ago, doesn’t catch fire with backup quarterback Cardale Jones against Alabama, doesn’t even make the first College Football Playoff, let alone win the national title.
It could have happened. Easily. (And if you ask TCU or Baylor, it should have happened that way).
This isn’t intended to take away anything from the hardware Ohio State won, putting Urban Meyer in a stratosphere with Nick Saban and nobody else. The Buckeyes earned it fair and square.
But it’s also important to acknowledge and remember how fragile that trophy actually was. To put a finer point on it, would the Buckeyes have a championship under Meyer had quarterback J.T. Barrett, then just a freshman, not gotten injured in the final game of the regular season, forcing Ohio State to play an actual passing threat in Jones?
It’s an interesting, though ultimately meaningless, question for the college football history books. Where it does have relevance is looking forward for Meyer, whose Ohio State legacy is tied to Barrett in some pretty profound ways.
Barrett has been on campus for five of Meyer’s six years in Columbus and been the starting quarterback for four. His injury was a serendipitous fulcrum during the championship season, and the subsequent indecision between Barrett and Jones going into the
2015 title defense didn’t help matters, as Ohio State’s offense looked far more ordinary than it should have given the returning talent.
So now here we are, two years later, and there’s legitimate teethgnashing in Columbus. While Ohio State has lost only four times since the national title, three of them have exposed potential trouble signs for a program that aspires to remain on the same level as Alabama.
In 2015, there was the shocking
17-14 loss at home to a lunchpail bunch of Michigan State Spartans whose starting quarterback was sidelined with an injury. That inexcusable performance kept Ohio State out of the Big Ten title and out of the Playoff.
Last season, when the Buckeyes were passed through into the Playoff despite not winning their Big Ten division, Clemson undressed them to the tune of 31-0.
And then Saturday, Oklahoma and first-year head coach Lincoln Riley did a number on Meyer in Columbus, handing him a 31-16 defeat. Oklahoma, like pretty much every Ohio State opponent these days, wanted Barrett to beat
them throwing. He couldn’t, completing 19 of 35 passes for 183 yards and an interception.
Meyer indicated after the game that he’s sticking with Barrett. It’s an honorable decision, because Barrett is by all accounts a terrific person with great leadership qualities who has overcome injury and been the quintessential program guy. But it’s not a decision that will help Ohio State compete for the national title or remain among the top programs.
With this kind of ceiling on the offense, Ohio State isn’t among the elite. It’s not as good as Alabama or Clemson or even Penn State. Maybe that is true regardless of whom Meyer plays, but if things continue on the current track, there’s no reason for anyone to fear the Buckeyes anymore.
For the first time in his tenure, the dominance of Ohio State under Meyer is at risk of being re-
duced to a myth built on one magical month in 2014.
(Disclaimer: This isn’t a ranking of worst teams, worst losses or coaches whose jobs are in the most jeopardy. This is a measurement of a fan base’s knee-jerk reaction to what it last saw. The way in which a team won or lost, expectations vis-à-vis program trajectory and traditional inferiority complex of fan base factor into this ranking.)
MOST MISERABLE
Ohio State: Oklahoma winning in Columbus sets up the potential scenario in which the Big Ten gets left out of the Playoff. It would essentially be the inverse of last season, when Ohio State’s win in Norman made the difference in getting into the Playoff and Oklahoma getting left out as the Big 12 champion. There’s a long way to go. Yet for all their real or perceived problems, the Buckeyes
still have the best overall roster in the Big Ten. They get Penn State at home Oct. 28. So unless they stub their toe somewhere else, it’s highly possible Ohio State is 10-1 going to Michigan on Nov. 25.
Baylor: So, yeah, this isn’t going to be easy. Maybe Baylor fans already knew that. But they probably hoped it wasn’t going to be quite this hard. The Bears have started the Matt Rhule era with home losses to Liberty and TexasSan Antonio, and there’s simply no amount of offseason goodwill in the bank that will stop people from flipping out about this turn of events. The Bears aren’t just down, they’re bad. Starting over bad. Rhule said the right things Saturday night. This quote, in particular, stands out: “I don’t want to make excuses, but like I didn’t come here because I thought it was going to be a really easy job. I didn’t come here saying to myself, ‘Boy, this will be fun. This will be easy.’ I came here saying, ‘This is going to be epic. This is going to be awesome. This is going to be a process.’ ”
Arizona State: No school has embraced the spirit of the Misery Index with quite as much vigor as Arizona State, which took a unique approach after its disastrous 30-20 loss to San Diego State. The football program’s official Twitter account, @FootballASU, tweeted the following: “If you feel the need to Tweet/DM degrading and insulting comments at our student-athletes, please direct it to this account instead. Thanks.” It’s probably going to get worse. Here’s Arizona State’s next eight games: at Texas Tech, vs. Oregon, at Stanford, vs. Washington, at Utah, vs. Southern California, vs. Colorado, at UCLA. If the Sun Devils win more than one game against that series of opponents, it will be a major upset.
Texas A&M: Though the racist letter sent to Kevin Sumlin’s home last week will rally some support for him because it’s unacceptable fan behavior on every level, you’d have hoped the players would channel their anger over the meltdown at UCLA onto the football field. Instead, they were in a possession-for-possession struggle with Nicholls State deep into the fourth quarter. Though A&M held on 24-14, the game wasn’t statistically one-sided, which should be a major concern going forward. Texas A&M is going to have to figure out what it can and can’t do with freshman quarterback Kellen Mond, who completed 12 of 21 passes for 105 yards, and they’ll have to do it quickly.