Ohio State Football: 3 fixes to make for successful 2020 season
1. Avoid the anomaly
The mark of great teams is their ability to handle their business week in and week out. It seems like an easy task, but on multiple occasions in recent years, a lone slip-up has been the undoing of Ohio State.
In two of the last three seasons, the Buckeyes suffered an inexplicable loss that ended up keeping them out of the CFP. In 2018, it was a 49-20 beatdown at the hands of Purdue, and in 2017, it was a similar 55-24 loss to Iowa.
Both games were obviously anomalies, but with such high scrutiny from the selection committee, it was these anomalies that were too much to ignore, and they ended up keeping the Buckeyes out of the playoff field.
In each of those seasons, the Buckeyes looked like one of the country’s best four teams, but got caught as they sleepwalked through a run of lackluster opponents. Now, in 2020, they look like one of the nation’s best four, but they’ll once again face stretches of uninspiring competition.
Eight games out of Ohio State’s 12 regular season contests look like victories by at least 17 points on paper. That’s a slate that includes Bowling Green, Buffalo, Rutgers, Indiana, Maryland, Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois. There’s an early-season matchup with Oregon, and the late-season affairs with Penn State and Michigan, but in between those is a group of extremely beatable squads.
However, If the Buckeyes show up to one of those games in sleepwalking mode, they’ll receive another one of those playoff-disqualifying defeats. A late stretch with back-to-back trips to Maryland and Illinois is especially dangerous, considering such a bad loss to one of those teams in November would surely kick Day and company out of the CFP.
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It seems like an easy task, but in recent seasons, Ohio State’s achilles heel has been simply an inability to handle the mundane matchup against the mediocrity in the lower parts of the Big Ten. If they can avoid a slip-up and once again reach the Playoff, this team is more than talented enough to win a title.