Superbad: The Long, Sad March to Orlando

It must have been good but we lost it somehow. Three games. That's all it was, comrades; three wonderful, serendipitous and wholly preposterous postseason games that all somehow skewed dramatically in Ohio State's favor.

This is a similar euphoria to what Virginia Tech must have felt last September on the way out of Columbus. That lasted exactly six days, then it lost at home to East Carolina. That's not even a real state. The difference with this euphoria is Ohio State didn't have to play six days after it faced Oregon, so ours gets stretched out over eight beautiful, gloat-filled months instead of one week.

We got lucky with that. Luck is finite. Luck eventually runs out. More on that shortly.

EVEN MICHIGAN FANS THINK YOU'RE ARROGANT.

Ask any TCU or Baylor fan - the Buckeyes simply found themselves in the wrong place at the right time and upgraded another one of its boring sleepwalks through the Rust Belt into a national title. This was the team Indiana took to the 4th quarter. This was the team Brady Hoke took the the 4th quarter, for the fourth year in a row. The team Penn State with half a roster took to two overtimes. The team that almost allowed Kent State to score last season.

This wasn't domination, and the ultimate arrogance is to expect it to happen again. Back-to-back titles, in the playoff era? Even Michigan fans think you're arrogant.

Repeating is hard as hell for anyone, let alone the lucky. Here's the fact-based case against Ohio State gloating once again next summer:

ALL B1G WHAT?

The Buckeyes graduated All Conference players Doran Grant, Jeff Heuerman and Michael Bennett, along with Honorable Mentions Darryl Baldwin, Devin Smith and Evan Spencer as selected by the coaches.

Spencer, Smith leave OSU with zero decorated WRs.

They only return J.T. Barrett - who might not even see the field - Taylor Decker and Joey Bosa. Bosa will get quadruple-teamed on every play in 2015. Honorable Mentions Cam Johnston and Josh Perry also return.

That's it, guys. Loaded? Like your mail carrier on Sunday morning, maybe.

So cool your jets on not-even-B1G-honorable-mention Ezekiel Elliott's Heisman campaign and not-even-B1G-honorable-mention Darron Lee's coronation and let's not give the Biletnikoff to Michael Thomas just yet because last season at award time B1G coaches gave them the Dre treatment and forgot all about them. There's a reason for that: their B1G contemporaries were deemed better by the people who would know best.

And that inferiority doesn't just end with the guys wearing the helmets.

It Begins with Leadership

Defending B1G Coach of the Year Jerry Kill makes his first trip to Columbus this season, fresh off award-winning back-to-back 8-5 seasons.

Kill showing the bar for winning B1G COY. [OSU not pictured]

I'm not going to go through and count all the B1G COYs that have graced the Horseshoe's sidelines since 1987 when Earle Bruce was run out of town, but it's a shutout. Ohio State coaches have consistently failed to demonstrate the leadership necessary to merit this level of recognition since 1979. Every other school - except Nebraska, Maryland and Rutgers, who all joined the conference 20 minutes ago - has had multiple winners in that span.

Two-time B1G COY Mark Dantonio returns to town for the first time since 2011 and COY candidates Randy Edsall and James Franklin both have designs on leaving the Horseshoe in triumph. Meanwhile, Urban Meyer enters his fourth season in Columbus without any conference coaching accolades or the potential to earn them. Expect Ohio State's B1G COY drought to extend into its 36th year.

It all starts at the top. History shows Ohio State doesn't have it. History holds the truth.

History CLASS

Speaking of Ohio State's head coach, take a look at his Power Five coaching history postseason destinations and try to un-see the obvious pattern.

Stubborn facts: Florida, under sub-optimal circumstances, is by far the most popular destination for Urban's teams since he joined the Power Five coaching ranks. "College Football Playoff" is tied with "Almost Gave Himself a Damn Heart Attack" in that span.

It's basic integer math, dreamers.

Take off your scarlet-tinted glasses, mostly because they look stupid. Now look up how often Dantonio loses to the same team twice in a row. Try and name the last non-Rich Rod Michigan coach to lose his home debut to Ohio State. SPOILER: His personal vehicle required a buggy whip and a top hat to operate.

Brace yourself for the ruthless lessons of history, friends. And Harbaugh. Shane Morris. Or maybe the Iowa kid who transferred there. Or someone else. But mostly Harbaugh. And second tier Florida bowls. And history.

THE Luck STOPS HERE

No more secrets about how to stop these two.

Let's face it; no one knew how to prepare for J.T. Barrett. He hadn't played in an actual live football game since Woody Hayes was coaching Nixon on how to get out of Vietnam. There was no film on this kid.

What a fortunate turn of events for Ohio State.

Barrett earned his way back to the bench once Michigan finally figured out his weakness was playing football with a shattered leg, which wasn't terribly dissimilar from Clemson suddenly figuring out that Braxton Miller was half the playmaker he was normally if you rip his arm out of his torso.

The secret was spilled: just tear Ohio State quarterbacks' limbs off and they turn into a bunch of quitters. But then Indestructible Cardale Jones™ lumbered onto the field and it was back to square one. Coaches were transformed into panicking doctors trying to kill resistant bacteria. 

LIGHTNING DOESN'T STRIKE TWICE. ONLY BRAXTON'S LABRUM DOES THAT.

No one knew how to prepare for Dolo. While Wisconsin, Alabama and Oregon were busy trying to solve that riddle the Slobs mauled everything in their path and not-even-B1G-honorable-mention-Zeke ran for a million yards. A classic bait-and-switch.

Three games. That's all it was, comrades - three wonderful, serendipitous and wholly preposterous postseason games that all skewed dramatically in Ohio State's favor. Lightning doesn't strike twice. Only Braxton's labrum does that.

IT AIN'T EASY BEING GREASY

There were six fumbles in the national championship game and the Buckeyes recovered none of them.

HERE, TAKE IT. YOU'RE IN FG RANGE ALREADY.

Yeah, they still won by 22 points but that violated like eight laws of science, several commandments, the entire Bill of Rights and possibly the Geneva Conventions. It would be foolish to expect this to continue happening.

It wasn't a one-game phenomenon either: Urban's Ohio State teams have fumbled 61 damn times since he took over. Keep in mind they've only played 41 games in that span. If you do the fumble ratio math here that comes out to a lifetime supply of trips to second tier Florida Bowls down in Angina Town.

Oh - and those hot, slippery fumble orgies didn't just go down against Oregon either.

Special teams disaster - two fumbles and a missed FG - yet Ohio state is poised to take a 28-21 lead over No. 8 to the locker room.

— Eleven Warriors (@11W) November 9, 2014

SELF-CORRECTION: We really meant three 1st half fumbles in East Lansing but ironically we fumbled the box score. And none of those fumbles were by Jalin Marshall, who compensates for fumbling by taking over games and pathetically trying to dazzle us with apology touchdowns as if that will cure everything.

Sure, Ohio State is 38-3 since Urban arrived - but at the expense of 61 fumbles. At this pace the Buckeyes will be 76-6 with 122 fumbles by end of the 2017 season. #AnginaTown.

FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY

We end with the Big Ten's "triumphant" bowl season.

It began with all ten B1G bowl-eligible teams being pinned as underdogs in their respective postseason games, then continued with big fat hypocrite Pat Forde famously predicting all ten teams to fulfill their underdog obligations by losing.

The Quick Lane Bowl Trophy: PROPERTY OF B1G

Your hubris over the return of the B1G is rooted in something Pat Forde said in December. Chew on that until you get nauseous. Then vomit. 

When all the dust, angst, disrespect and giant fart noises finally settled in January the Big Ten had participated in 11 postseason games as underdogs including both playoff rounds. It went a respectable 6-5, the most triumphant B1G bowl season since 2002.

Seems like a good record until you realize Michigan was 6-5 entering its Senior Day last season. Going 6-5 sucks if you apply the right context. Remove Ohio State and the conference went 4-5 in the postseason. We're back, baby.

This is how hubris is made: there's no confidence to be gained from Rutgers winning in December or Penn State being victorious in Yankee Stadium - and if you think a serendipitous postseason blip + a bunch of returning players who couldn't even merit Honorable Mention consideration last season = National Championship then I'd like to meet your math teacher in an MMA-style octagon.

Prepare for disappointment in 2015. And don't say you weren't warned.