The 2021 season might be Ohio State’s least successful since 2011.
The Buckeyes are still a top-10 team in the country, and their 10-2 record to end the regular season is one that most Power 5 programs could only dream of. The individual success of several Ohio State stars, led by Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year and presumptive Heisman Trophy finalist C.J. Stroud, will only further cement its status as a dream landing spot for many of the nation’s top recruits in the immediate future.
But for the first time in a decade, Ohio State will have finished a season without accomplishing any of its three primary goals.
“It’s the worst feeling you can possibly have,” Stroud said after Ohio State’s loss to Michigan this past weekend. “I know people probably hate me for it, but at the end of the day, I know deep down in my heart I put everything; I put my heart and soul, I put my body on the line, I put everything that I possibly could to win this game. At the end of the day, whatever happens, happens. Just know that I love this team, I love Ohio State, I love Buckeye Nation, and know every single day I’m gonna keep grinding just to get this win back.”
Sure, the Buckeyes fell short of a national championship in each of the past two seasons. But Ohio State at least contended for one by reaching the College Football Playoff, beating its archrival and winning the Big Ten Championship Game along the way.
The Buckeyes have fallen short of a couple of those goals on several occasions throughout the past decade, but not since their 6-7 2011 campaign have they failed to achieve any of the three. Ohio State didn’t play in the postseason at all in 2012 due to its one-year ban, but the Buckeyes still notched a win over the Wolverines. Ohio State failed to win Big Ten titles or vie for a national championship in either 2013 or 2015, but again, the Buckeyes beat Michigan.
In 2016, Ohio State missed the conference title game, but made the playoff and handed the maize and blue yet another defeat. From 2017-20, the Buckeyes won the conference outright in four straight seasons, beat Michigan and earned two playoff berths. Even in the two years during that stretch in which Ohio State didn’t make it into the field of four, the other two accomplishments served as consolation.
Ohio State will not be able to rest on any of those laurels this offseason, as its first loss to Michigan in 10 years stripped the Buckeyes of the chance to win a Big Ten championship or contend for the national crown. While this season’s bowl game may seem more meaningless than most in recent memory, one potential matchup in particular for the Buckeyes could provide the program a small shot at redemption to close the year out on a high.
Should Oregon exact revenge on Utah in Friday’s Pac-12 Championship Game, Ohio State will likely get a shot to rectify one of its two losses in the Rose Bowl. The Buckeyes can’t go back in time to right the wrong of last week’s loss to Michigan or the Sept. 11 defeat at the hands of the Ducks, but the chance to get at least one of those games back before the end of the season is essentially as close as they can get.
“Of course it’s not the game that we want to be in or the games that we want to play for, but it’s definitely an honor even to be considered. To play back home, that’s been a dream of mine since I’ve been a little kid,” Stroud told Big Ten Network on Wednesday. “Playing in the Rose Bowl, I feel like if we can do that, I can just go out there and just have fun, be home, have a home atmosphere and I thought that would be awesome.”
It was that loss that forced Ohio State to reevaluate its defensive approach, as Ryan Day shuffled around play calling duties on his defensive coaching staff thereafter, and the 35-28 defeat at the Shoe became a rallying point for the Buckeyes.
By the time Ohio State found its stride with several impressive batterings of Big Ten opponents over the next month-and-a-half, Day was already touting his team as a different group than the one that played Oregon in Columbus. Many felt Ohio State deserved to jump the Ducks in the CFP rankings despite that head-to-head result following the Buckeyes’ 59-31 beating of Purdue on Nov. 13, but once the Ducks suffered their second loss of the season the next week, the pecking order was sorted out.
Surely after the Buckeyes’ 56-7 win over then-No. 7 Michigan State, no one would question who the favorite should be in a theoretical rematch between Ohio State and Oregon. Even after Ohio State’s second loss of the season, it still remains three spots ahead of Oregon in the CFP rankings. In all likelihood, that rematch would no longer be hypothetical if Michigan wins over Iowa and Oregon wins against Utah in the Big Ten and Pac-12 title games this weekend.
But regardless of the opponent in Ohio State’s bowl game, Rose or otherwise, a third loss in the same season would mean another decade-long low point for the Buckeyes. Ohio State hasn’t suffered more than two losses since 2011, and the program has done so just twice in the last 16 years.
Look ahead to next season, and it’s no cupcake awaiting Ohio State in the season opener. Even with a new head coach in Marcus Freeman, Notre Dame will be another big test for Day and the Buckeyes, who won’t want to enter that matchup on the heels of back-to-back losses to close out the year before.
As meaningless as the bowl game may seem after the season Ohio State has had, there are more than a couple reasons why it could carry quite a bit of weight after all.
