Ohio State Lost So They Could Win
Embrace the narrative, folks -- that won it all too
Sports are about stories. Even the most strident of nerds will grant this truth, on the basis of the analytics dictating they should. Me personally, I’ve never needed much convincing on that front. But in case you do, allow me to present Ohio State’s last ~7 weeks.
On November 30th, the Buckeyes lost in embarrassing, feckless fashion to their arch rival Michigan — at home in Columbus, for their fourth consecutive loss to the Wolverines. But at least the preceding three losses happened when Michigan was contending for titles. Michigan was not that good this year. Don’t tell Alabama that, but they weren’t.
Which made it all the worse when Ohio State, credibly the most talented team in the nation this year, went scoreless in the second half and blew it 13-10 while looking totally useless on offense. It was a humbling, almost unimaginable collapse for a team with designs on a national championship.
Calls for head coach Ryan Day to lose his job — he of the 69-10 career record, who has never entered a season with his team ranked worse than #5 in the country — suddenly got very loud. That was overdoing it, in my opinion, but I’m not an Ohio State fan. So I guess that’s how big a knock it is in Columbus when you lose to Michigan. Four times. In a row.
And, again, not an OSU fan, but it’s my understanding that there are still some people who aren’t going to let the events of Monday night supersede the continued failures against Big Blue. If Day had done anything other than what just happened, then he very might well have been in some danger this offseason.
So here’s what happened after that loss to Michigan:
December 22. Ohio State absolutely steamrolls Tennessee, just the beginning of a long winter for the SEC.
January 1. Ohio State absolutely steamrolls Oregon, avenging the Buckeyes’ only other loss this year and knocking off the top overall seed.
January 10. Ohio State wins a tighter game against Texas, punctuated by a historically great play from their talismanic defensive captain, DE Jack Sawyer.
And finally, January 20. Ohio State absolutely steamrolls Notre Dame in the first half, only to let them back in the game towards the end. Notre Dame shows some fight, and Ohio State puts it away late with a huge play to all-universe WR Jeremiah Smith.
Now, we do have to acknowledge. Let no one think this was a team of destiny in the usual sense. The Buckeyes were favored in every single one of these games, albeit only by 2.5 against Oregon, which in turn influenced the -5.5 line against Texas. They weren’t a Vegas underdog in a single game this year, not even the first one against Oregon, which they lost by a point after going in as 3.5-point favorites.
However! I don’t think that invalidates the general thesis here, which is one of those rare times when concepts as nebulous — and, for the most part, statistically immeasurable — as desire to prove themselves and Fuck You energy align with the results on the field.
Ever since losing to Michigan, Ohio State seemed to suddenly remember how good they were. And then they played like that for the rest of the year, all the way to a national championship. That’s… really cool. You don’t have to like the program, or ignore its clear advantages as a blue-blood with a ton of resources. The fact remains: this team easily could have folded after that loss in November, and they didn’t.
Yes, they’re (probably) the most expensive roster in the country. Yes, they are (probably) the most talented. But I have to point out: they recruited most of these guys themselves! A lot of that money seems to have gone to retaining the players they already had. And I’m supposed to be upset about that?
Yes, they also pulled in some highly impactful players, from backup RB Quinshon Judkins to All-American S Caleb Downs, a rather competent QB in Will Howard, and a similarly qualified C in Seth McLaughlin.1 Three of those guys came from well-resourced SEC schools, by the way (Downs and McLaughlin from Alabama, Judkins from Ole Miss).
What I would submit as more important was holding on to the long list of key upperclassmen who they themselves recruited, like WR Emeka Egbuka, RB TreVeyon Henderson, DEs Jack Sawyer and JT Tuimoloau, DT Tyleik Williams, OG Donovan Jackson, and S Lathan Ransom.
Unlike Alabama, they didn’t bleed the high-end talent that they brought in and coached up. Good! I don’t begrudge them that. Roster continuity is hard to achieve these days, and NIL is generally more disruptive to that than not. I’m in no way opposed to this case, where it’s ‘used for good’ or whatever. A full two-thirds of Ohio State’s starting roster, pretty much everyone eligible, is about to get drafted. To keep that together is an accomplishment.
Add to that an incredibly impactful true freshman in Jeremiah Smith, who is no less than one of the best WR recruits we’ve ever seen, and another top-10 WR they recruited themselves in sophomore Carnell Tate, and you have yourself a very good squad.
No, it didn’t come free. Top-flight talent generally doesn’t, so I won’t spend much time on all the discourse around the $20M roster. I get why that number bothers some people, but
already made this point better than I could, so go and read his piece on this if you haven’t. I’ll pull out an excerpt to put a finer point on it, emphasis mine:If Ohio State got this roster for $20 million, it’s an absolute steal, and everybody else in the sport should feel pretty stupid.
$20 million is not a lot in big-time college sports. Ohio State’s athletic department made $280 million in the 2023 fiscal year, much of it because of their football team. And that’s less than they’re going to make this year, with new TV deals for the Big Ten and the College Football Playoff.
The payout the Big Ten will receive because Ohio State made the national championship game is… coincidentally, exactly $20 million3. If you were to put an actual dollar number on the value of having a team this good, it would be very, very, very high. A lot higher than $20 million.
Bingo. And if you just took all the rosters in college football this year and simulated the season, Ohio State would probably win it all in a lot of those years.
Fortunately for us, though, we do not simulate sports. We play them, and this was shaping up to be a year where a hyper-talented team folded and never redeemed itself. I tend to like when potential is realized, as we saw Monday.
Which brings us to the playoff.
None of this would have been possible in any prior year. Following that loss to Michigan, Ohio State finished the regular season ranked #8. In no other year would they have gotten a shot to do this. They’d be out by a mile, forever remembered for that failure and nothing else. Ryan Day will be thankful for the rest of his (don’t) days that this was the year he chose to lay an all-time egg.
So… is that a good thing or a bad thing? I’ll take good. I’ve always felt the recency bias of year-end college football rankings tended to produce less than optimal, and needlessly arbitrary, final rankings, which then in turn gave us less than optimal and needlessly arbitrary champions. Call me crazy, but I like when teams get to play for it.
Money-grubbing aside, I don’t think we’ve gone backwards with the College Football Playoff. I think we’re getting closer. I’d make some fixes to the seeding, which was admittedly pretty dumb this year. But it’s not like Ohio State played some cupcake schedule to get to the finish line. Two of the four teams they played were ranked #1 for stretches this year. All of them had weeks in the top five.
No one looked unbeatable, as I wrote in early December. After Michigan, though, the Buckeyes came the closest. They put it all together. It’s an unanswerable question as to whether they would’ve done all this had they won their game against the Wolverines. There’s no way to know, but since it’s fun to speculate, I’m gonna lean no. I think they could have easily lost to Texas, even with the anguish of that L in the back of their mind.
What showed up, especially at the end of that Texas game, was a marked gap in execution. ‘Mental toughness’ is notoriously fuzzy, and yet, I do declare I saw it.
Now, look. I already said I was pulling for Notre Dame. I wanted one for Bob, who hasn’t seen much success since damn near when he was an undergrad there. Those were the Joe Montana days, to put that in context. And I do declare I saw a lot of mental toughness outta those guys too.
That first drive from Riley Leonard was… insane? And to sort of make it a game in the 4th, that dramatically outgunned, impressed me. Marcus Freeman and co. should be extremely proud of what they were able to do after their own embarrassing loss this year to… Northern Illinois.
For both of these teams to make it this far was, in my view, an impressive display of resolve. Sports are about stories, and both teams’ were great this year. So was the ending. Couldn’t have written it better myself.
🏈 In case you missed the Wednesday dispatch, here are some thoughts on the Jayden Daniels experience. Inquire within!
⚾ By now, I’ve heard all the arguments around Ichiro and the single Hall of Fame voter who left him off the ballot. If you’re being generous to that person, who remains anonymous, then you might say: well, maybe that guy knew that Ichiro was a lock to get in without his help, so he decided to use one of his limited votes to help someone else out toward the bottom of the ballot. I don’t know. David Wright, Torii Hunter, somebody like that. I hope that’s the case, because it kinda seems like it’s either that or this dude just had an axe to grind. We’ll never know. But if that was his plan, he probably should’ve colluded with a couple other subversives to make sure it accomplished something. As is, he’s just the guy who cast a protest vote and snubbed Ichiro. Thumbs down.
⚾ They don’t give out trophies for the offseason, so just like the Mets’ coup for Juan Soto, I’m withholding judgment on the Dodgers’ crazy haul this winter. They’ve brought back Teoscar Hernandez and Blake Treinen, signed Michael Conforto away from the Giants, signed Blake Snell away from the Padres, then signed Tanner Scott, also away from the Padres, after also signing Roki Sasaki, Japan’s latest pitching phenom, away from… everybody. Not bad!
🎾 That was a gutsy, one-legged win from Djokovic over Alcaraz earlier this week. Wasn’t surprised to see the early white flag against Zverev, sadly. And yet! I continue to be impressed by the staying power of, yes, the greatest men’s player in history. Will he ever get another major? Unclear! And the hunt continues.
🏀 The Ballad of Jimmy Butler continues, as he prepares to serve out a second suspension from the Miami Heat this month. Can we get this guy outta there? Please? I tire of these frivolities.
As well as, apparently, TE Will Kacmarek, who — double apparently — went to my high school? And here I thought I was pulling for my Missouri guys on Notre Dame, Jeremiyah Love and Aneyas Williams, both of whom should be back for them next year.