Allow me to take you all back more than a quarter of a century. Thirty years, to be precise. The year was 1995. Toy Story hit theaters that November and ushered in a new era of animation. Gas was $1.20 a gallon. Waterfalls and Gangsta’s Paradise dominated the radio (the actual radio, not streaming kids!). That year, Ohio State football was an absolute juggernaut. That team had the best offensive lineman in the country (Orlando Pace, winning the first of his consecutive Lombardi Trophies), the best wide receiver in the country (Terry Glenn, Biletnikoff winner), a 3rd round draft pick at quarterback, and the LITERAL best player in the country in Eddie George, who won the Heisman. That team hung 45 on 15th ranked Notre Dame and 56 on #25 Iowa en route to an 11-0 start. Then suddenly, a team with a laughable surplus of offensive firepower forgot how to offense, scoring just 37 points in its final two contests, losses to that team up north and Tennessee in the Citrus Bowl.
Thirty years later, the script had flipped from offense to defense. The 2025 iteration of our beloved Buckeyes had FOUR first round draft picks on defense, including the Thorpe Award winner for best secondary player in the country. This unit allowed 7.8 points per game in the regular season. Nobody scored over 16 points all season. Imagine only needing to score 17 points to guarantee victory! Quite a privilege. The last five teams to allow less than 11 points per game in the regular season (including, incidentally, the 2024 Ohio State Buckeyes) all won the natty. To quote former Vikings (and Cardinals during this famous rant) head coach Dennis Green, “Crown their ass!”
Then came the Big Ten championship game. Lots more great defense. Only 14 points were required to win this game, against the #2 team in the country! Except 14 points didn’t come, only 10 did. 13-10 *shudders*. A bizarre, though somewhat dismissible, loss. Buckeye faithful had been bemused about mediocre red zone play calling and execution all season, a seemingly endless competition to see how many tight ends could legally be on the field simultaneously. It hadn’t mattered. Every game had been won. Until now. Now, things must change.
Except things didn’t change. Not in the slightest. Like a degenerate gambler putting good money after bad, Ryan Day- and whatever other offensive staff he allows any input- doubled down on a head-scratching strategy to intentionally shorten games and keep opponents as close as they are capable of being which, in the case of the final two games, was so close they actually won.
Before I continue, it bears mentioning that, to compliment the incredible defense, Ohio State’s offensive cupboard was FAR from bare. Max Klare, a day 2 draft pick tight end weapon, Bo Jackson, an incredible freshman running back, TWO FIRST ROUND WIDE RECEIVERS AND A QUARTERBACK WHO SET THE ALL-TIME COMPLETION PERCENTAGE RECORD were on this offense. This is not hyperbole. Jeremiah Smith is the best receiver in college football. Julian Sayin is the most accurate quarterback in the history of the game (they’ve only been playing it for 150 years or so though, so take that with a grain of salt). Carnell Tate is a first-round pick, yet WR2 on this roster. Pure absurdity.
Yet somehow, this is the offense that mustered a whole 10 points against Indiana (again, only 14 were needed to win). This is the offensive unit that was shut out at halftime against Miami. It doesn’t matter how good your defense is if you score 0 points. Remember that insane 1995 Ohio State offense? It scored 23 and 14 points in its last two outings. Still 13 points more than this team managed.
The defense? Phenomenal. The word “generational” gets thrown around way too often, but when you’re a quarter of the way through a century and NO defense has allowed fewer PPG through the regular season, that qualifies. Even counting the Big Ten championship game- against the future national champions- that number was only up to 8.2 PPG which tied 2011 Alabama (national champs, of course). Indiana averaged 40.3 ppg in the playoffs. They hung 56 on Oregon. The Silver Bullets held them to a measly 13, and the offense simply did not do its job.
In the bigger picture, I can forgive some of the Indiana outing. Hartline was leaving, recruiting was in flux and as nice as a Big Ten championship is, there was truly not a whole lot at stake. The post-game interviews sounded as if it was simply a regular season game and that the playoff would wake this offense up. The ignition would be hit, the car would shift into 5th gear, and away the Buckeyes would go. Instead, Ryan Day chose to stay in 3rd, cruised town at 35 MPH, and flat out refused to even begin to approach anything like what this offense could have done.
Moreover, at the start of the season, when our quarterback was a complete unknown and two new coordinators were being installed, 11-2 sounded about right. Another CFP appearance was acceptable in August. But as information compiles, goals are adjusted. Turns out, that new quarterback was allergic to inaccuracy. Hey guess what? That guy that coordinated all those Super Bowl winning defenses in New England knew what he was doing! Expectations rose accordingly, and justifiably. Ultimately, those expectations weren’t met.
Fair or not, this falls on Ryan Day. The supposed offensive mastermind managed just 24 points in the final two games of the season with the aforementioned bevy of talent. There are a litany of truly great Buckeye teams in years past (’69, ’95, ’96, ’98, ’03, ’15, ’19 off the top of my head) that did not win a title for myriad reasons. 2025 has to be added to this list. A legitimately generational defense was squandered by a coach who absolutely could not get out of his players’ way. Day’s outright refusal to let his elite offensive players exert their influence on the game to their maximum extent (read: more plays)- especially when it mattered most in the postseason- will leave Buckeye Nation befuddled for years to come
