Ohio State Football: 3 fixes to make for successful 2020 season

Ohio State football reached the playoff last season, but came up short in the semifinal. How can the Buckeyes get over the hump in 2020?

It feels like it’s been an eternity since Ohio State climbed to the top of the college football mountain in 2015. With five years of early exits and underwhelming finishes in Columbus since that 42-20 national title victory over Oregon, the program that now resides under the control of Ryan Day is starting to wonder what exactly it will take to get back to the top.

This last five seasons have been especially frustrating for the Buckeyes because they have been so close on several occasions. In 2016 and 2019, Ohio State reached the CFP, only to be ousted twice by Clemson.

In the other three seasons, the Buckeyes reached and won a Rose Bowl, Cotton Bowl and Fiesta Bowl. Those were great seasons, but perhaps it is the downside of the CFP that, at Ohio State, a failure to reach the playoff is viewed as a failure of a season.

Of course, it doesn’t matter what the expectations should be, it only matters what they are. Day and the Buckeyes can reach the CFP and come up short in the semi-final as many times as they want, and win as many New Year’s Six games as they want, but that will never be enough in Columbus.

In 2020, the focus for this team is getting over the hump. Ohio State believes it is the class of college football, along with Clemson and Alabama, but only one problem arises with that logic. Both the Tigers and the Tide have won titles in the last five years.

The Buckeyes understand the old Ric Flair adage, “To be the man, you’ve gotta beat the man.” For Ohio State to truly be the man in college football, they’ll have to not only reach the CFP, but win the whole thing. Here’s how they do that in 2020.