Why Is The College Football World Sleeping On Ohio State?


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The college football season began visibly off script for Ohio State. On the first defensive snap of its first game against Notre Dame, the Buckeyes missed a tackle, allowed a 54-yard completion and earned a 15-yard penalty for roughing the passer. By the end of the first quarter, it had lost the nation’s best wide receiver (Jaxon Smith-Njigba) to an injury and punted twice after drives rapidly petered out. Alarmingly, a unit that featured three of the eight players with the shortest preseason Heisman odds — a unit that at least one outlet thought had the potential to be the greatest offense ever — was both outgained and outscored in the opening half by an unproven Irish team without its preseason All-American lineman

It didn’t ultimately matter: The Buckeyes pitched a second-half shutout and left the Shoe with an 11-point win. And the subsequent weeks have been mostly devoid of on-field adversity. Those two punts in the team’s first three drives? Ohio State then went seven consecutive games without a first-quarter punt. The defense that effectively kept the Buckeyes out of the playoff in 2021? Ohio State now features one of the nation’s strongest — especially along the interior, where they lead the Big Ten in expected points added against the run. That offense making do despite injuries to preseason All-Americans Smith-Njigba and TreVeyon Henderson? Ohio State has averaged a nation co-leading 0.32 expected points added per play through nine games, one of the highest marks in the playoff era.

All told, Ohio State has outscored opponents by a combined 270 points and has looked every bit the part of a national title favorite. But that doesn’t mean it has been treated like one.

Despite two top-15 wins and top national marks in ESPN’s total efficiency and SP+ metrics, Ohio State has yet to reach No. 1 in either the AP or Coaches polls, and came in second in the debut edition of the 2022 College Football Playoff rankings. Two different teams have received top billing in the AP Poll, but not Ohio State, which opened the season as the No. 2 team and has won all of its games by double digits. In Week 10, Tennessee — which started the season unranked — received more first-place votes than Ohio State. 

It’s all enough to wonder: Why? Has SEC dominance evolved to such a degree that any team outside of its orbit — even the Big Ten’s finest — is unable to crack the marquee? Have voters only tuned in for the first half of the season opener or last weekend’s cartoonish first half in Evanston, Illinois, when wind…



Read More: Why Is The College Football World Sleeping On Ohio State? 2022-11-08 20:05:37

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