After the Big Ten's announcement that real fall football is returning, I'm the most optimistic (read as: at all optimistic for the first time) for the prospect of 2020 Ohio State football since the day the Big Ten Tournament was abruptly aborted. I need to share my thoughts on this now because if the season is cancelled again I'll be too depressed to write a word or watch a single down of football for another year.
Tempering Expectations
I'm not talking about expectations for how many games are going to be played vs. cancelled. If there's an outbreak among the players and a few Saturdays fall by the wayside I'll raise my fist against the sky in lamentation of another joy that 2020 has taken from us. No, I'm talking about the reason that so many of us in Buckeye Nation were desperate for this season to happen (other than every Buckeye season is our year-defining series of events): the Buckeyes are deep in the hunt for their 9th national championship.
Remember the Fiesta Bowl? It seems like a million years ago at this point but last December what was quite possibly the greatest team in Ohio State history blew their chance at immortality against their hated nemesis Clemson. Yes, I've only been watching Buckeye football closely since about 2000 or so but last year's team was far and away the best unit I've ever seen and I don't think any of the historical units (1968? 1973? 1996? 1998?) is in the conversation either. After the game finished I went home and wrote my introduction to the 2020 Ohio State season opener game just raving about how ticked off this team is going to be and the pounding they were going to put on Bowling Green. That writeup aged like Walter Donovan but the core sentiment remains: this team is going to be hungry for another chance, and they're returning enough pieces (OL, WR, DL, TE, LB, P, K, and oh yeah, QB) to make it happen.
All last fall we had to hear the national pundits talk about what could've been for Ohio State had they not let Joe Burrow get away. Was it the right call to let him go in 2018 and focus on Haskins? Almost certainly yes: he had a rocky go in his first season at LSU while Dwayne was single-handedly dragging Ohio State to a Big Ten title and a Rose Bowl championship. But a favorite "what-if" among the Buckeye faithful was: would you rather have had 2 years of Joe Burrow or a year of Dwayne and a year of Fields? After all, Ohio State almost definitely wins the natty with last year's version of Burrow on the team (if for no other reason than that LSU no longer has him). Were two great, nearly phenomenal seasons sufficient compensation? My answer always was: let's wait and see what Fields unleashes in his goodbye tour. If he leads us to the promised land, it was all worth it.
And then we had our hearts ripped out by the cowards at Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, Purdue, Penn State, Rutgers, Maryland, Michigan State, and Michigan. We were never going to see Justin Fields in an Ohio State uniform again. Now that he's back, joined by the bulk of his old receiver corps and O-line and a shiny new transfer RB, the sky is the limit once again for the Buckeye offense and, so long as the secondary doesn't completely fall to pieces (we see you, Shaun), the team as a whole.
It sucks that we didn't get to see this team hunt the Ducks last week, but a championship would heal all ills from this season.
Of course, all of this is assuming that they're not going to get kneecapped by the Playoff Committee...
The Secret Life of the Committee
The Committee has wisely kept its mouth shut during the turmoil of season postponements and cancellations, other than to release their schedule for ranking releases, which are a bit later than usual. The first rankings, usually out around the start of November, are due out on November 17, well past the B1G's revised start date of October 24. This means the Committee won't have much film of the Buckeyes to look at before they put the number next to the name, but the final rankings aren't due out until the Big Ten season finishes on Championship Saturdelay anyway, so the Bucks will have a full 9-game season to make their impression. The only problem is that the Buckeyes are set up to make a less complete impression than their competitors from the SEC (10 games each), Big 12 (10 games each) or ACC (11 games each). This could work for or against the Bucks: short season means fewer chances for losses, but your win total's not going to be as shiny, and no bye week means you're not getting a break from getting each opponent's best shot week after week. Not to mention that an outbreak, whether at home or affecting some drag-along team like Rutgers or Illinois that's not laser focused on the season, could limit Ohio State's win opportunities even further.
But despite what the tinfoil hat crowd on Twitter and the Eleven Warriors comment section would have you believe, there's no conspiracy to keep Ohio State out of the Playoff. There is no way that a 9-0 (or even 8-0 with a game cancellation) Buckeye team is going to be ranked anywhere below #3 unless they're showcasing some serious 2002 style points, and even then a fall to #5 is out of the question. Even a one-loss Ohio State team isn't doomed if they can win the conference and pull off good wins against Penn State, Michigan, and/or Wisconsin. Where is the Committee going to find four better teams, particularly now that Notre Dame is playing in a conference and squarely under Clemson's thumb (or vice versa)? One from the SEC, one from the Big 12, one from the ACC, and...what? A second team from the SEC? No chance if the Buckeyes haven't lost. Dixie will scream and holler that they're playing 10 in-conference games in far and away the toughest conference in America (ironically, as a result of imitating the schedule the Big Ten originally pioneered) but there is no chance in hell that an undefeated Ohio State is left out of the playoff with eight or nine wins, a conference championship, and zero losses, no matter how closely the 9-1 SEC runner-up played Bama. A Group of Five team? Not likely with the MAC (lol) and Mountain West not playing (although at the time of writing this, the MWC was trying to reverse course as well), and the nonconference schedules severely curtailed, preempting any signature wins by a team from a lesser conference. Am I forgetting anyone? Oh, yeah...
A Lot to Un-Pac
Anyone notice that throughout the "will they / won't they" soap opera embroiling the Big Ten, nobody cared about whether or not the Pac-12 would come back? OK, not nobody, USC has been lobbying to get the season started up again, but there hasn't exactly been an outcry in Seattle or Eugene or Berkeley (lol) about a lack of football. At least nothing compared to Lincoln or Columbus. Nevertheless, perhaps in response to the Big Ten's earthshaking announcement, governors Gavin Newsom (California) and Kate Brown (Oregon) have loosened their restrictions on college football, clearing the way for a return of Pac-12 football. However, Larry Scott has indicated that he wants at least a 6 week timeframe for a reboot of the football season, and the rumor mill is floating a Halloween start date at the earliest, so their timeline seems to be somewhat slower than the B1G's. Given that the Big Ten schedule grants a maximum of 9 games with no byes, it's hard to see how the Pac-12 will have anything approaching a full season for Committee consideration. Not that they had a serious title contender this year anyway, except maybe (maybe) Oregon or USC. At least they'll have a champion to send to a New Year's Six game, I suppose.
Random Thoughts
- I know it doesn't matter at all, but what is the AP Poll going to do this week? True, the Big Ten won't have played any games until late October, but the AP Poll ranked B1G teams preseason despite the teams having no prospects for playing in 2020. The SEC continues to feature top 25 teams despite not taking the field for another couple of weeks. Either way, this poll is going to be weird to watch: either Ohio State is going to hover around #1-4 for a month and a half despite not playing a single snap, or a bunch of 1-0 B1G teams are going to suddenly pop into the rankings just in time for the start of November.
- With the 8-game conferenceschedule, Ohio will get presumably get 2 cross division opponents before championship & friends weekend. Please please please let them be Iowa and Purdue.
- What the hell is going on in Ann Arbor? Ohio State reacted to the restoration of a meaningful 2020 season by clawing back two 100%-lock early NFL draft picks who had already opted out. Michigan reacted by shedding their presumed starting QB, Dylan McCaffrey, and their top receiving threat, Nico Collins. Scared of getting 100 hung on them? Jimmy knows tanking doesn't work in college, right?
- And to pile on TTUN even further, a joke shamelessly stolen from Eleven Warriors commenter Barfolomew: with the 8 games + 1 "everybody plays on championship weekend" schedule, Michigan will finally play in a postseason B1G game. Congratulations.
