1. The Safety Dance
When Ohio State hired Jim Knowles to take a hatchet to the incompetent defense that cost the Buckeyes a natty (2020) and their longest ever streak in The Game (2021), they were expecting the same kind of three high safety driven scheme that Knowles had run at Oklahoma State. And they implemented it fairly well in 2022, with Tanner McCalister following Knowles from the other OSU to teach Ronnie Hickman and Lathan Ransom how the scheme worked. But I doubt that Knowles could have foreseen the kind of talent he'd have at his disposal on the back end for Ohio State this year. Ransom's still here, and he's the highest-graded run defender in the country. Caleb Downs might just be the best defender in the country, period. I can't recall a play this season where I thought, "Man, Caleb, what are you doing?" but there seems to be at least one in every game where I'm not convinced the guy is human. Throw in last year's elite nickelback Jordan Hancock to round out the 3-safety look and you'll not find a better deep threat container and run game neutralizing combination anywhere in college football.
2. Ask and You Shall Receive
Notwithstanding Ohio State's elite safety unit, Notre Dame has put the best performing pass defense of any team on the field this fall (and winter). But they haven't seen anything like what Ohio State's about to roll out on them. Last time the Irish took the field they did not allow a single reception to a wide receiver. But that's Penn State for you; Ohio State allowed three receptions to wide receivers in Happy Valley earlier this season. The only team that Notre Dame has seen with receiver talent in the same galaxy as Ohio State is USC, and they allowed 360 yards through the air and 3 TDs to the Trojans. Oregon decided to play man-to-man coverage against Jeremiah Smith and paid dearly. Notre Dame has pledged to do the same; let's see if there's a man among them who can stop a properly motivated #4.
All the wide receiver talent in the world doesn't make much of a difference if the man behind center can't get them the ball. Look no further than (no, not Ohio State last year, leave Kyle McCord alone), let's say, LSU pre-Burrow. After McCord declared his intentions to leave and it became really, really obvious that Devin Brown and Lincoln Kienholz weren't going to be the answer, Buckeye Nation was a bit frustrated to miss out on Dillon Gabriel and Cam Ward to pick up...Will Howard? I mean, yeah, nice Big 12 championship, but the last transfer QB we picked up in a pinch was one of the top recruits in his year and left thanks to criminal mismanagement of his talents by his Georgia Bulldogs. It felt like with Howard, you knew what you were getting at this point. I thought if he could be as good as replacement-level JT Barrett, the Buckeyes might have a chance. Folks, he's been better. Outside of a clunker against you-know-who, Howard has been one of the steadiest hands in college football, with a 72.6% completion percentage that ranks #1 in Ohio State history and one of the top QB ratings across the entire sport. Riley Leonard is a great dual threat QB in his own right but I wouldn't expect him to engineer a 13 play, 88 yard drive with 7 completions like Will used to put Texas away.
4. I've Aged You Well. Some Might Say Perfect
This year has been an interesting reversal of fortune for the collective age of the Scarlet and Gray. A program that's used to sending its top talent early to the NFL and facing scrappy underdogs of second-tier senior talent suddenly finds itself holding on to the vast majority of the landmark 2021 class for one more year. And people say NIL is destroying the sport. From here in Columbus, it looks like it's saving college football, convincing players to stick around for one more year who'd otherwise be long gone. Joliet Jack spent the offseason putting the band back together, and the fruits of his labor are a starting lineup featuring 13 senior or grad starters, the vast majority of which could easily have found playing time in the NFL this year. Setting aside the obvious raw ability of this group, their combined experience and leadership are precisely the intangibles any championship team needs.
5. Bustin' Makes Me Feel Bad
It feels strange to say, but the Buckeyes have been relatively lucky from an injury standpoint this year. Yes, they were thin at offensive line even when the season began, and yes, they lost their two best players on the line, forcing them to rethink how to put together an effective run blocking scheme. But Notre Dame's been getting punched in the gut again and again this season, up to and including their last outing in the semifinals against Penn State. From All-American cornerbacks, to offensive linemen, defensive linemen, a kicker, and even their star running back. It's gotten so bad that starting lineman Charles Jagusah, ruled out for the season during training camp, might be back for the championship...to replace another lineman, Antoine Knapp, who left the Penn State game with an injury. The Irish have weathered the storm to the tune of a 13-game winning streak, but when you're already working at a talent disadvantage, you don't want to be breaking in new starters against the best team you'll face all year.
6. Line Dance
Speaking of breaking in a new-look offensive line, the Irish have come up with the worst possible time to do so. The Buckeye defensive front has been an absolute wrecking crew throughout the Playoff, totaling 12 sacks, 17 TFLs, and 10 pass breakups, along with a pretty significant forced fumble and touchdown to clinch a spot in the championship. Jack Sawyer in particular has been playing like a man on fire, which is even more impressive considering every opposing tackle along the way has mistaken him for Olaf and given him a warm hug. But with Notre Dame starting a new left tackle this week, look for the damage to be done on the other side of the D line by JT Tuimoloau in his swan song. A repeat of the 2022 Penn State game wouldn't be out of the question.
7. Running on Empty
As stated above and in our list of Irish superlatives, Notre Dame covers the pass like no one else nationwide. It may surprise you to hear, then, that their run defense has been downright pedestrian. Part of this may be a defensive line that's a constant work of progress due to injury. But for whatever reason, the Buckeye offense, usually predicated on success through the air, may find some room to work on the ground after taking a step back against Texas. Notre Dame's elite rushing attack may be elite but Jeremiyah Love will have a lot harder time trying to run on TnT inside and Caleb and Lathan outside than Tre and Quinshon will finding room against a (relatively) soft Irish front. Look for Howard to have a game changing play like he did against Penn State and Texas as well.
8. Notre Dame Ain't Played Nobody, Pawwwwwl (until the Playoff)
The tone of the media was very different after Ohio State's loss to Oregon as compared to the treatment of Notre Dame after losing to Northern Illinois. The Irish had been riding high off of a season-opening road win over Texas A&M, but one untimely loss put their Playoff hopes on a razor's edge as early as week 2. The reason? A squishy soft schedule the rest of the way, which looks even worse in retrospect. The only team Notre Dame played in the regular season that was ranked going into bowl season was Army, and that was only because new rankings didn't go out after the Black Knights lost to Navy. The Irish have more than proven their mettle in the Playoff itself, as Indiana, Georgia, and Penn State are no joke, but Ohio State has been doing this all year. Notre Dame will be the sixth Playoff team the Buckeyes will have faced this season, seventh if you count Oregon twice. Basically everyone except the joke teams and Georgia. Ohio State's proven that they can lose to the mediocre as well as the great, but this will be the ultimate test for an Irish squad that had the luxury of sleeping through class until December's wake-up call.
9. Goldilocks Defense
The Buckeyes are knocking on the door of their first national title in ten years, but they came agonizingly close just two years ago. Facing off against the #1 team in the country, who would go on to the biggest national championship blowout in history just a week later, the Buckeyes surrendered an eleven-point 4th quarter lead to fall by one point to the national champs. Most emblematic of that collapse was a one-play, 76-yard drive to cut Ohio State's lead to 3. Lathan Ransom fell down in man coverage and there was no other safety to help him. The play served as a great microcosm of the overly aggressive Jim Knowles defense that worked like gangbusters in 2022 until Michigan and Georgia were able to exploit it mercilessly for a combined 86 points. In 2023, the Buckeye defense were more content to play contain and keep everything in front of them, which worked well all season until Missouri and, who else, were able to eventually wear down the Silver Bullets, who forced no turnovers to help out the insufficient Buckeye offenses in those games. This year, Knowles seems to have mixed the formula just right, and suddenly it's like watching the 2019 defense again, with a punishing line and suffocating secondary working hand in hand to create nightmares for opposing teams. Nowhere was this more evident than the crucial penultimate last series against the Longhorns, where the back seven held up the Texas offense just enough to allow the defensive line to stick the last dagger deep in the heart of Texas.
10. One More, Then Forever
If you haven't read Jack Sawyer's goodbye piece about what being a Buckeye means to him, by all means go read that instead of this (although we'd love you to come back and finish this, too). The 2021 Buckeye class features some of the best to ever put on the Scarlet and Gray at their respective positions. And while these players have won 46 games and never lost more than two games in a season (inshallah) or finished outside the top ten, they haven't attained a single one of the team's goals in any of their seasons. If they don't want to leave Ohio State as the most accomplished group of failures in program history, they'll need to take advantage of their one last chance to write their page in the chronicles of Buckeye legends. As mentioned in the schedule analysis above, this Buckeye team has proven it can beat multiple top teams in a season, and they've had to string a few together by the sheer structure of the new Playoff. Time to put it all together and deliver four years' worth of frustration to whatever poor saps stand between them and immortality.
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