Matt Tamanini
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Fast Forward: Previewing Ohio State’s best and worst case scenarios for 2024 season
Matt Tamanini via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Fred Squillante/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK
We fast forward to the end of the season to see where Ohio State might end up.
On the eve of another college football season, before all of the pageantry unfurls in Columbus; before the revelry returns to the banks of the Olentangy; before another entry into the more than a century-old annuls of Buckeye history is written, I feel it is my responsibility to bring a bit of perspective to Ohio State fans.
The wide-eyed optimism of another college football campaign can be both intoxicating and contagious. Despite a string of ultimately disappointing seasons, the potential of this Buckeye team has fans across the country approaching heretofore-unseen levels of giddiness as visions of ticker-tape parades dance in their heads.
While I am not here to put a damper on any of that excitement — as I share their exuberance for what might be — I am also old and have lived through many a disappointing turn in the winding road that is Ohio State fandom. So, I come not to bury the optimism, but to interrogate it.
Imagine me as something akin to The Ghost of College Football Future. I will show you two scenarios of what might be for the Buckeyes at season’s end; neither possibility is written in stone, but both currently sit in the nebulous space between possibility and eventuality. It is up to Ryan Day, his coaching staff, his team, and, yes, even you, Buckeye Nation, to determine which of these outcomes proves to be the reality that we eventually experience.
Venture forward at your own risk, while we will start our journey with a prospective future that many reading will welcome, it will be followed quickly by a far darker and more painful prospective outcome. You have been warned.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25595801/usa_today_15387242.jpg "NCAA Football: Sugar Bowl-Ohio State vs Clemson")
Russell Costanza-USA TODAY Sports
By MATT TAMANINI
12:34 AM EDT, January 20, 2025
ATLANTA, Ga. (LGHL) — Neither the mountain of expectations nor Kirby Smart’s No. 2 Georgia Bulldogs were enough to prevent Ryan Day’s top-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes from finishing their undefeated season and claiming the first College Football Playoff National Championship in the 12-team era. Just as Urban Meyer and the Buckeyes did a decade ago, securing the first CFP title, OSU has made history. This time, the Scarlet and Gray became the first team in FBS history to ever win 16 games in a season and bested a playoff field of a dozen teams to hold the championship trophy aloft at Mercedes Benz Stadium.
Despite the title contest being played in the Dawgs’ backyard, OSU had the game essentially in hand by the end of the first half, eventually winning 38-17. The Buckeyes were led by their Heisman Trophy finalist pair of quarterback Will Howard and running back TreVeyon Henderson. The former threw for another workman-like 284 yards on 21-for-29 passing and 3 touchdowns. The latter rushed for 126 yards, caught one of Howard’s TD throws, and added another on the ground.
The highlight was a wheel route out of the backfield that capped the second quarter. Already up 17-7 with just 8 seconds remaining before halftime, Henderson at first appeared to be sitting in the backfield, content to block as Howard wound up for a last-second Hail Mary. However, he soon released and found a spot 10 yards beyond the line of scrimmage, completely uncovered.
The quarterback found him and delivered a strike in stride as Henderson and the Buckeye blockers did the rest of the work from there. After a handful of jukes and a powerful stiff arm to UGA defensive back Daylen Everette, the senior back raced 64 yards into the end zone, essentially salting the game away.
The victory is a culmination of not only one college football season but an era of evolution for the Ohio State program and its head coach. Once considered unprepared for the biggest moments, this year’s Buckeyes showed brightest on the biggest stages with decisive victories on the road against Oregon (41-27) and Penn State (38-12) and at home against Iowa (31-3) and archrival Michigan (45-17).
The knock on Day’s teams during the first five years of his tenure at Ohio State was that they were not tough enough to survive the gauntlet of a Big Ten schedule. However, this season, not only did the Buckeye defense become the first team since 2011 to hold opponents to under 10 points per game, but the offense led the power conferences with 231.6 yards per game on the ground; a marked turnaround from Day’s previous pass-first reputation.
This season — especially the final result — is a vindication of both coach and program. Day took his lumps learning to be a head coach on the job under the brightest microscope in all of college football, and while the journey was undoubtedly painful at times, he has emerged on the other side as unquestionably one of the best coaches in the sport and now as a national champion.
No matter what base he started on, it is clear that Ryan Day and the Ohio State Buckeyes hit a grand slam this season.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25595803/usa_today_22193092.jpg "NCAA Football: Cotton Bowl-Missouri at Ohio State")
Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports
By MATT TAMANINI
12:34 AM EDT, December 20, 2024
COLUMBIA, Mo. (LGHL) — History, it seems, can in fact repeat itself. Following an embarrassing performance in the Cotton Bowl to close out the 2023 season, the No. 9 Ohio State Buckeyes again saw their season end in disappointing fashion at the hands of the No. 8 Missouri Tigers. While there were more points scored in the first quarter of the College Football Playoff opening round game than there were in the entire Cotton Bowl a year ago, the outcome was no less crippling for a Buckeye program that went all-in, with decidedly rocky results, this season.
Playing in front of over 62,000 fans at Faurot Field at Memorial Stadium in Columbia, Missouri, the Tigers won the game 27-16 as Ohio State’s offense continued to sputter. As it has all season, the Buckeye offensive line was unable to either give quarterback Will Howard enough time to find his receivers or open holes for the talented backfield tandem of TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins.
Instead, the OSU offense moved down the field in spurts and stops. Howard finished the game completing 17 of his 38 pass attempts for 194 yards and a touchdown. Henderson and Judkins each had moments where their sheer athleticism looked like it might be able to overcome the dire state of the offensive line, but neither was ever able to string together enough positive yards to put a dent in the scoreboard. The pair combined for 96 yards on the ground; Henderson had 53, Judkins had 43.
Despite the Buckeye defense’s continued impressive play, it was again the team’s offense — ostensibly the strength of head coach Ryan Day — that prevented the team from reaching its lofty preseason expectations. After dropping regular season games to Oregon (27-10) and archrival Michigan for the fourth-straight season (17-9), this feels like a turning point in the history of Ohio State football.
With the talent that his staff has assembled in Columbus throughout his time as head coach, Day has never been able to fully capitalize on the potential, routinely falling in the biggest games. Where his predecessors Urban Meyer and Jim Tressel seemed to summon the best of their squads in those moments, Day appears only capable of the opposite. There is no doubt that Day is a good coach and an excellent football mind, but after yet another demoralizing loss, Ohio State must consider if the stage is just too big for him at this point in his career.
Continue reading...
Matt Tamanini via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Fred Squillante/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK
We fast forward to the end of the season to see where Ohio State might end up.
On the eve of another college football season, before all of the pageantry unfurls in Columbus; before the revelry returns to the banks of the Olentangy; before another entry into the more than a century-old annuls of Buckeye history is written, I feel it is my responsibility to bring a bit of perspective to Ohio State fans.
The wide-eyed optimism of another college football campaign can be both intoxicating and contagious. Despite a string of ultimately disappointing seasons, the potential of this Buckeye team has fans across the country approaching heretofore-unseen levels of giddiness as visions of ticker-tape parades dance in their heads.
While I am not here to put a damper on any of that excitement — as I share their exuberance for what might be — I am also old and have lived through many a disappointing turn in the winding road that is Ohio State fandom. So, I come not to bury the optimism, but to interrogate it.
Imagine me as something akin to The Ghost of College Football Future. I will show you two scenarios of what might be for the Buckeyes at season’s end; neither possibility is written in stone, but both currently sit in the nebulous space between possibility and eventuality. It is up to Ryan Day, his coaching staff, his team, and, yes, even you, Buckeye Nation, to determine which of these outcomes proves to be the reality that we eventually experience.
Venture forward at your own risk, while we will start our journey with a prospective future that many reading will welcome, it will be followed quickly by a far darker and more painful prospective outcome. You have been warned.
It’s his day! Ryan Day, Buckeyes climb college football mountain and finally win national championship
By MATT TAMANINI
12:34 AM EDT, January 20, 2025
ATLANTA, Ga. (LGHL) — Neither the mountain of expectations nor Kirby Smart’s No. 2 Georgia Bulldogs were enough to prevent Ryan Day’s top-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes from finishing their undefeated season and claiming the first College Football Playoff National Championship in the 12-team era. Just as Urban Meyer and the Buckeyes did a decade ago, securing the first CFP title, OSU has made history. This time, the Scarlet and Gray became the first team in FBS history to ever win 16 games in a season and bested a playoff field of a dozen teams to hold the championship trophy aloft at Mercedes Benz Stadium.
Despite the title contest being played in the Dawgs’ backyard, OSU had the game essentially in hand by the end of the first half, eventually winning 38-17. The Buckeyes were led by their Heisman Trophy finalist pair of quarterback Will Howard and running back TreVeyon Henderson. The former threw for another workman-like 284 yards on 21-for-29 passing and 3 touchdowns. The latter rushed for 126 yards, caught one of Howard’s TD throws, and added another on the ground.
The highlight was a wheel route out of the backfield that capped the second quarter. Already up 17-7 with just 8 seconds remaining before halftime, Henderson at first appeared to be sitting in the backfield, content to block as Howard wound up for a last-second Hail Mary. However, he soon released and found a spot 10 yards beyond the line of scrimmage, completely uncovered.
The quarterback found him and delivered a strike in stride as Henderson and the Buckeye blockers did the rest of the work from there. After a handful of jukes and a powerful stiff arm to UGA defensive back Daylen Everette, the senior back raced 64 yards into the end zone, essentially salting the game away.
The victory is a culmination of not only one college football season but an era of evolution for the Ohio State program and its head coach. Once considered unprepared for the biggest moments, this year’s Buckeyes showed brightest on the biggest stages with decisive victories on the road against Oregon (41-27) and Penn State (38-12) and at home against Iowa (31-3) and archrival Michigan (45-17).
The knock on Day’s teams during the first five years of his tenure at Ohio State was that they were not tough enough to survive the gauntlet of a Big Ten schedule. However, this season, not only did the Buckeye defense become the first team since 2011 to hold opponents to under 10 points per game, but the offense led the power conferences with 231.6 yards per game on the ground; a marked turnaround from Day’s previous pass-first reputation.
This season — especially the final result — is a vindication of both coach and program. Day took his lumps learning to be a head coach on the job under the brightest microscope in all of college football, and while the journey was undoubtedly painful at times, he has emerged on the other side as unquestionably one of the best coaches in the sport and now as a national champion.
No matter what base he started on, it is clear that Ryan Day and the Ohio State Buckeyes hit a grand slam this season.
Missouri ends second-straight disappointing season for Ohio State
By MATT TAMANINI
12:34 AM EDT, December 20, 2024
COLUMBIA, Mo. (LGHL) — History, it seems, can in fact repeat itself. Following an embarrassing performance in the Cotton Bowl to close out the 2023 season, the No. 9 Ohio State Buckeyes again saw their season end in disappointing fashion at the hands of the No. 8 Missouri Tigers. While there were more points scored in the first quarter of the College Football Playoff opening round game than there were in the entire Cotton Bowl a year ago, the outcome was no less crippling for a Buckeye program that went all-in, with decidedly rocky results, this season.
Playing in front of over 62,000 fans at Faurot Field at Memorial Stadium in Columbia, Missouri, the Tigers won the game 27-16 as Ohio State’s offense continued to sputter. As it has all season, the Buckeye offensive line was unable to either give quarterback Will Howard enough time to find his receivers or open holes for the talented backfield tandem of TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins.
Instead, the OSU offense moved down the field in spurts and stops. Howard finished the game completing 17 of his 38 pass attempts for 194 yards and a touchdown. Henderson and Judkins each had moments where their sheer athleticism looked like it might be able to overcome the dire state of the offensive line, but neither was ever able to string together enough positive yards to put a dent in the scoreboard. The pair combined for 96 yards on the ground; Henderson had 53, Judkins had 43.
Despite the Buckeye defense’s continued impressive play, it was again the team’s offense — ostensibly the strength of head coach Ryan Day — that prevented the team from reaching its lofty preseason expectations. After dropping regular season games to Oregon (27-10) and archrival Michigan for the fourth-straight season (17-9), this feels like a turning point in the history of Ohio State football.
With the talent that his staff has assembled in Columbus throughout his time as head coach, Day has never been able to fully capitalize on the potential, routinely falling in the biggest games. Where his predecessors Urban Meyer and Jim Tressel seemed to summon the best of their squads in those moments, Day appears only capable of the opposite. There is no doubt that Day is a good coach and an excellent football mind, but after yet another demoralizing loss, Ohio State must consider if the stage is just too big for him at this point in his career.
Continue reading...