Now that the confetti has fallen, I think teams outside of Columbus are already sharpening their knives to figure out how they can come for the Buckeyes' throne. In some ways, I think Day and company showed the blueprint for how to navigate this new era. My takeaways:
(1) While I'm not a fan of this, we could see elite teams scheduling fewer marquee out-of-conference matchups. With up to a 17-game season ahead of them (and no more need to be perfect through the regular season) there is no incentive for a Top 5-10 team to jeopardize its record by taking on an OOC blueblood. OSU, Penn State, Indiana, Tennessee, and ASU all scheduled lightly in the nonconference slate and were not penalized for it. On the flip side, the mid-majors of the world (e.g., BSU) absolutely will need to schedule aggressively to show that they belong as even a "good loss" will reflect positively on them in the G5 beauty pageant.
(2) Teams will slow down on offense: Day and Kelly confirmed what we all suspected--we intentionally huddled and slowed down the playcalling rate when we had the football to shorten the season and limit the hits our players took. Given the way our depth chart looked compared to Notre Dame's at the end of the season, this strategy was wise.
(3) Teams will ask star skill players to timeshare: The regular season will just be about doing enough to make it to the postseason, then staying fresh enough for the stretch run. Tennessee, Notre Dame, and Oregon all had elite record-setting running backs and receivers get dinged up during the playoffs and had major dropoffs in production once they couldn't carry the team. OSU's two-headed monster at tailback and three "WR1s" ensured that regardless of the down, distance, quarter, or month, our skill guys were fresh and ready to punish opposing defenses.
(4) In-season rehab will be a third dimension of S&C: The postseason has gotten so long that injuries that previously would have been considered season-ending in the pre-playoff era are no longer the case. Notre Dame welcomed back Charles Jagusah at a critical juncture (literally he had his first start of the year in the Natty) and Oregon dodged a bullet and brought both Tez Johnson and Jordan Burch back in time for the B1G CCG. Load management will be the name of the game, but so will smart rehab to restock the cupboard for the CFP.
