During the playoff era, Ohio State has swept the month of November on two separate occasions. Both of those teams advanced to the College Football Playoff.
That happened in 2014 and 2016, of course. One season ended in a dream — the other a nightmare. But both got there after ironing some issues out and flexing their muscle in the final month of the regular season.
This year's Buckeyes have a bye week to prepare for the money month — a break they desperately needed after suffering a stunning 49-20 defeat on the road against Purdue.
With their time off, Urban Meyer, the coaching staff and players have a lot of questions to answer. And even though they're 7-1, finishing November unscathed seems less likely this year than any other season since Meyer took over in 2012.
That's bizarre to think after how the season started. Through five weeks, Ohio State looked like the only team capable of giving Alabama a fight after impressive primetime wins against TCU and Penn State. There were concerns during that stretch, but they all seemed either negligible or fixable during what should have been the easy stretch of the schedule.
A leaky defense? That'll improve once the linebackers get more experience and Nick Bosa returns. A secondary susceptible to the big play? That one's easy, the cornerbacks coach just needs to tell these guys to simply turn around and look for the ball every once in a while. The slumping run game? Well all of these quick, short passes to the perimeter are essentially an extension of the rushing attack, so the Buckeyes aren't really averaging fewer than four yards per carry against defenses filled with 3-star recruits.
That sentiment simply floated away through the windy night sky in West Lafayette last Saturday. The defense continued to give up big plays and the rushing attack was more a comedy of errors than anything else.
That loss sent Ohio State back to Columbus with some soul-searching to do.
“The glaring shortcomings we had... were exposed,” Meyer said in the postgame presser.
Thanks to the bye week, the Buckeyes have 14 days to fix what's broken. On top of everything mentioned above, Meyer needs to address an uninspired red-zone offense that can't convert, an offensive line that's missing routine assignments and a team that has committed more penalties than all but four teams in major college football.
Needless to say, it'll be a busy two weeks.
But to their credit, the Buckeyes are saying the right things for the most part.
“When you’re on a roll, it’s not like you feel like you can’t get touched, but you don’t know what taste is like to lose, and it almost makes you recalibrate and get your mind right,” McLaurin said this week. “Look yourself in the mirror, all of us men in the locker room, and see what you can do to get better. Not what the guy next to you can do, what you can do, and as a leader, that’s my job to make sure everybody feels that.”
The team captains will get on the players, and Meyer is already on the staff. As reported earlier this week, all the coaches scheduled to go out recruiting the day after the Purdue game stayed in Columbus to address Ohio State's "glaring shortcomings."
Can Ohio State do it? Can it fix its issues, or enough of them to rattle off the four wins it needs in November to become a playoff contender once again?
That's a tough sell, considering the schedule. The 1-6 Nebraska Cornhuskers should be a layup, but they just hung 53 on a Minnesota team that Ohio State struggled with. Then the Buckeyes take on extremely capable Michigan State and Maryland teams on the road before the season finale against Michigan at home.
But all things considered, one thing Ohio State has on its side is that opportunity November presents. Despite their warts, the Buckeyes are still in position to make a playoff run. They just need to use their time off to learn how to close.
