Sowing the Seeds of Disrespect
After beating every team on their schedule by double digits — including a Top 10 Wisconsin team twice — the Buckeyes fell from No. 1 to No. 2 in the College Football Playoff selection committee’s eyes in the final rankings.
The drop has now pitted them against No. 3 Clemson out in the Fiesta Bowl, while No. 1 LSU gets No. 4 Oklahoma, which is seen as the much easier road.
While Ohio State head coach Ryan Day isn’t going to get into any “easier road” talk with his team, it wouldn’t be all that unusual for a coach to use a drop in the polls after a win as a motivational tool with his team.
But will Day?
“Yes, again, trying not to get too far into that. I know we’re just proud of what our guys have done,” he said recently. “We’ve been done everything we can up to this point, and now it’s time to go play Clemson. I think at this point you can’t look back on those kinds of things and we can go back and forth about it, and I know those guys had a hard decision to make.
“They made it, and we’ve got to move on. We can’t worry about that. Again, if we want to go win the whole thing, we have to be able to play everybody, so now we’ve got a chance to go play Clemson.”
Oh, To Be Young
If all goes as planned for the Buckeyes, they will play 15 games this year. That’s just one game less than a typical season for the NFL’s Cleveland Browns.
These last three games for the Buckeyes — against Penn State, Michigan, and Wisconsin — physically drained the team, but the recovery process has already begun.
“The players are going to be fine,” OSU athletics director Gene Smith said on Sunday. “I think what Ryan [Day], [strength coach] Mickey Marotti and the staff put together as a schedule, really is a good break for them. We’ve still got academics as a high priority right now because we’re in finals, but I think they’ve given them enough off time for their bodies and more psychologically to recover. Because fortunately, knock on wood, we are kind of healthy, really. So I think the schedule is fine.”
The coaches, however, have to wrap up recruiting, keep up with practice and organization, and then at some point they have to try and figure out how to beat the Clemson Tigers.
“The coaches is a little challenge. I feel for them because literally, they’re gone now,” Smith said. “We just won the championship how many hours ago, and these guys are leaving their families and they’re gone, trying to make up for last week. We weren’t on the road last week when everybody else was, which is good. I’m glad that we weren’t on the road. But at the same time, these guys gotta roll now and all the way through the next weekend. So I think it’s harder on the coaches than it is the kids.”
Fear the Buckeyes?
There has been constant talk heading into the seedings that both LSU and Ohio State needed to avoid Clemson.
If the Buckeyes had stayed at No. 1, they would have faced Oklahoma instead of Clemson and life would have apparently been easier.
However, the Buckeyes have the No. 1 scoring offense in the nation and the No. 1 defense in the nation in terms of yards per play, so shouldn’t teams have also wanted to avoid them?
“Yeah, I mean, I’d like to think so,” redshirt sophomore center Josh Myers said. “To be honest with you, top four teams in the country, I don’t think anyone really wants to play. I mean, you do because you’re a competitor, but when you’re looking at advantages for yourself, all four these teams are great football teams. Oklahoma’s 12-1, Big 12 champs. They’re not gonna roll over. You know what I mean?
“All four of the teams in this thing are really, really good football teams and it could go either way for anybody.”
Any little slight osu feels, clemson has it in spades. The coaches will use it, but osu isn’t an undefeated returning national champ, who went undefeated, and then is selected third. They both use it, and it’s negated as a motivational tool. Next.
“It could go either way for anybody” and no truer words have been spoken (with the exception of Oklahoma). You can comfort yourself comparing easy schedules, citing statistics, whining about LSU being top seed, or making ad hominem attacks on Clemson’s coach, even his name but that fan BS has nothing to do with who wins and there may be some disappointed people if they base expectations on it. I’ve noticed in comment sections many barely post-pubescent homers with short time horizons and no context speculating about this being the best Buckeye team in history (every other year, lol). Down by 21-7 to Wisconsin at the half…Clemson is much better than Wisconsin. OSU is a much better team and better coached team than the one that played Clemson in 2016. This time around OSU deserves to be there unlike that year. We really owe Clemson a whipping but don’t expect an easy win. They’re much better than PSU, Wisconsin or UM. Don’t kid yourself about that. We’re fortunate to have an opportunity to play both Clemson and LSU. The Committee got it right for once and the order is perfect. If the Buckeyes take care of business in Glendale then they hopefully face LSU and their incredible Heisman quarterback and former OSU backup in a historic game for the ages. What more could you ask for? We really need to get past Clemson. Let’s go give Trevor Lawrence a haircut. Yes, the Heisman already has our boy from The Plains name engraved on it. OSU has three worthy players for consideration but Burrow is in another class entirely. It’s his and he deserves it. What a year!
Ok. Time we get over nit being picked #1…and we definitely cant let a “woe is us, we gotta play Clemson” defeatus attitude set in. That will get us destroyed!
The attitude must now become…”DEMOLISH Clemson” and earn some damn respect! The lack of respect Dabo and Clemson has for us should be plenty fuel to fire this team up. Dabo damn near had to fight back laughing at us on Sunday when he got interviewed following the selection show…and he never took that smirk off his face while talking about the matchup. Urban let this guy get way too big for his britches…time Day bring him down to size.
Great response, I agree with everything you wrote!
I agree, but nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors. I think that the Buckeyes have had that killer attitude all season, thus the results.
I sort of welcomed Swinney’s smirk and false humility.
In short, I can’t wait for this game.
Spot on, Dabo was bragging about his team being undefeated, yet not recognized. There are 20 teams that could have gone undefeated playing his schedule. He reaped his benefit from last year’s record and the point spread in his games.