They lost their edge. They also lost “The Game.” But what they haven’t lost in Columbus are the expectations.
And for now, at least, Ryan Day has decided to view that as a blessing, not a curse.
“I mean, you hope that every year you’re in that position at Ohio State,” said Day, the Buckeyes’ head coach. “I think that’s what makes Ohio State unique. There’s probably 5-10 (programs) across the country that are that way, where every year the expectation stays the same.”
This year certainly will be no different for Ohio State, even though Day’s team — still smarting from last year’s “unacceptable” rivalry loss in Ann Arbor — kicks off the 2022 season this week as something other than the defending Big Ten champion for the first time since 2016.
Ohio State is ranked No. 2 in the preseason AP poll, brings back a roster stacked with NFL-caliber talent — led by quarterback C.J. Stroud, the preseason Heisman Trophy favorite — and seems to be a near-consensus pick along with Alabama to make this year’s College Football Playoff. In fact, the way ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit sees it, the Buckeyes' toughest opponent might not be on their schedule.
“I think for Ohio State, the biggest thing they’re going to have to guard against is all the attention that they’re getting, and the expectations,” said Herbstreit, who is among the national pundits picking the Buckeyes to win it all this winter. “That’s rat poison, as Nick Saban calls it, everybody talking about them as if they’re already in the playoff. So they have to show up with a chip on their shoulder. But I think, internally, they will.”
Clearly, that is Day’s expectation in the wake of last season’s relative disappointment.
“A lot of times, you go 11-2 and win the Rose Bowl, you’d say that’s a heckuva season,” he shrugged. “Well, not around here.”
Not after the way the Buckeyes have ruled the Big Ten with impunity, winning nine of the last 10 meetings with Penn State, eight of nine now with Michigan and six in a row over Michigan State — the last five by a combined score of 216-38.
Day, who is 34-4 overall and 23-1 in the Big Ten at Ohio State, is entering his fourth full season as the Buckeyes’ head coach, which means he’s no longer viewed as a caretaker of Urban Meyer’s program. These are mostly his recruits now, and this is his team.
But after losing just two games combined in his first two seasons at the helm in Columbus — one in a CFP semifinal, the other in the title game — this is now Day’s cross to bear: 42-27. Because last November’s snowy crime scene in Ann Arbor is not one that’ll soon be forgotten by Buckeye Nation.
“It was sickening,” said Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Ohio State’s All-America receiver. “We always thought we were just gonna go to the playoffs and … ‘Boom!’ We were just too sure of it, and we're gonna learn from that for sure."
Day sounds determined to make sure of that, even after his team rebounded with a wildly-entertaining win over Utah in Pasadena on New Year’s Day.
“The first goal is to beat the Team Up North and win the rivalry game and that didn’t happen,” Day said. “We had to sit on that for a calendar year, and that’s not good. We don’t want to have to go through that again. So, in the offseason, we’ve tried to really make sure the guys were reminded of that game, that the coaches were reminded of that game, that everybody in the building was reminded of that game.”
Those memories — and the reminders — have left Ohio State’s returning players “a little scarred” and “a little calloused,” Day says. And more than a little motivated, everyone agrees, particularly after the way Michigan manhandled their rivals at the line of scrimmage in the Big House, rushing for nearly 300 yards in the game and completely dominating the second half.
“I think everybody had to look in the mirror,” said Mickey Marotti, Ohio State’s strength and conditioning coach for the last decade. “Everybody.”
Making changes
Day didn’t even wait for the end of the season to do that, actually. Having already stripped defensive coordinator Kerry Coombs of his play-calling duties following a loss to Oregon in mid-September, he announced the hiring of Oklahoma State’s Jim Knowles as Coombs’ replacement in early December. And after building a top-10 defense in short order in Stillwater, the 57-year-old Knowles now finds himself tasked with doing the same at Ohio State, albeit with better talent.
The Buckeyes ranked 59th nationally in yards allowed last season, but some of that can be attributed to a lack of experience on that side of the ball entering 2021. And the stripped-down gameplans that followed that staff shakeup were something Jim Harbaugh and the Wolverines happily exploited in their matchup.
Knowles’ arrival all but guarantees that won’t be the case this fall, as his 4-2-5 scheme is heavy on disguise and varied pressures, forcing quarterbacks to make the kind of post-snap reads Cade McNamara simply didn’t have to in that runaway win last November. Knowles likes to call it “playing offense on defense,” and he says Ohio State’s roster full of blue-chip recruits is better equipped to make this transition than the one he inherited at Oklahoma State in 2018.
“Nothing is easy, but it’s more accelerated,” Knowles said. “These guys are hungry. They’re tired of being pointed at as deficient in any way.”
They’re also facing a prolific offense every day on the practice field. In addition to Stroud, who passed for 4,435 yards and 44 touchdowns as a first-year starter last season, the Buckeyes return two other legitimate Heisman candidates from an offense that led the nation in scoring last season. Njigba’s last outing was a record-shattering Rose Bowl performance that saw him haul in 15 catches for 347 yards and 3 TDs, while TreVeyon Henderson ranked No. 2 nationally in yards per carry (6.82) as a true freshman.
“But everything we get has to be earned," Stroud said. "Nothing will be given. Just because we had the No. 1 offense last year doesn't mean we'll have it again. We have to go out there and take it."
And they’ll get a serious test right off the bat, with Saturday’s home opener under the lights against fifth-ranked Notre Dame, a team led by a former Buckeye in new head coach Marcus Freeman.
But they’ll also have one more reminder inside the Horseshoe on Saturday night, as the school welcomes back Jim Tressel and members of Ohio State’s 2002 national championship team to celebrate the 20th anniversary of that undefeated 14-0 season.
“That’s the goal,” Smith-Njigba said. “Anything below that is not acceptable. I mean, sure, there’s pressure. But we love it.”
