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Ohio State Football 2024 Preview: Beat Michigan and Win the National Championship Already
By Pete Fiutak,
3 hours ago
Ohio State College Football Preview 2024
Sep 17, 2022; Columbus, Ohio, USA; Ohio State Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day leads his team onto the field prior to the NCAA Division I football game against the Toledo Rockets at Ohio Stadium.
Beat Michigan again and win the national title for the first time since 2014 already. Being really, really close doesn't seem to matter.
Ohio State had the ball down six with a minute to play and a shot to beat Michigan. Everyone forgets that it was 17-17 late in the third.
One scoring drive in the final moments, and Ohio State goes on to beat Iowa in the Big Ten Championship and is the No. 1 team in the College Football Playoff getting Alabama in the Rose Bowl.
Had Noah Ruggles made the 50-yard field goal—doable for him—in the 2023 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, Ohio State beats Georgia.
Everyone forgets that the Buckeyes were a straight kick away from winning the national title—they would’ve destroyed TCU.
That's how close the Buckeyes have been to being even more amazing, but as is ...
Ohio State head coach Ryan Day is much, much better than you think.
Ryan Day is 59-8.
Out of those eight losses, one was to Missouri in last year’s Cotton Bowl—no excuses; Ohio State should’ve had a Plan B.
Three were to elite Michigan teams. One was to Georgia to end 2022, one was to an Oregon team that played for the Pac-12 Championship in 2021, and one was to Alabama to end the 2020 season. One was to Clemson to end the 2019 season.
That’s eight losses to teams that finished with ten wins or more. Three of those defeats were to the national champions in those respective seasons, one was to a team that lost in the national championship, and two others were to teams that made the CFP.
And yet, at Ohio State, the guy with an 89% winning percentage and two Big Ten Championships—and a hand in a third title-winning season—pretty much has to win the national championship this year in totally dominant fashion...or else.
Yeah, yeah, yeah ... beat Michigan, or else.
Here’s the crazy-but-true part of this: Day’s 2024 team could go 16-0, beat everyone by 40, win the national title, and yet, for some, it STILL wouldn’t erase the stain of losing three straight times to Jim Harbaugh.
(Oh, you think I’m joking. I couldn’t convince a slew of Buckeye die-hards in 2021 that it really was okay to root for Michigan to win the Big Ten Championship so Ohio State could go play in the Rose Bowl.
And, STILL NOT JOKING, I’ve written and said that line about “Ruggles hits the kick straight, Day is a national championship head coach,” several times, and I always get some random blowback about how it wouldn’t have mattered/would've been diminished because, you know ... Ohio State lost to Michigan.)
Seriously, do you really get how good Ohio State football is?
It’s the only school that would’ve made all ten College Football Playoffs had there been this year’s 12-team format since 2014.
Not Alabama, not Clemson, not anyone.
No, seriously, do really get how good Ohio State football is?
Had there been a 12-team College Football Playoff format in place, Ohio State would’ve made it in 18 of the last 19 years and 20 of the last 22.
So yes, absolutely everything about The Ohio State University football program is about a completely twisted set of elite superpower program expectations that can never really be met - and it’s not fair. Even so ...
Yeah, Ohio State, if you don’t beat Michigan and at least play for the national championship this year, the season is a failure.
If you’re going to set the expectations crazy high, then meet them.
It’s okay this year for Ohio State to lose to Georgia in the College Football Playoff National Championship.
That’s the one other team that has so much talent at an absurdly high level that, yeah, if the Dawgs win in Atlanta on January 20th, tip your hat.
ANYTHING else, and nope. Not okay.
Ohio State has a loaded team of veterans returning who took the end to last year harder than anyone.
There’s way too much all-star experience across the board, and even more was added with S Caleb Downs from Alabama, QB Will Howard from Kansas State, RB Quinshon Judkins from Ole Miss, and UCLA head coach Chip Kelly as the new offensive coordinator.
This is about as professional as a college football program gets in the new era. It worked the system the way it’s supposed to be done, it put the parts together, and …
Just beat Michigan again, Ohio State. Do that, and move on.
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