The loss to Michigan broke me. I don't know what's real anymore.
For roughly half of my entire life, it was essentially a guarantee that every November, the Ohio State Buckeyes would defeat the Michigan Wolverines in the sport of football. This was an iron-clad rule of the universe that I centered my entire metaphysical understanding of reality around. My calendar, my cardinal directions, my astrological divination, my crop rotational cycles... everything relied on Ohio State scoring three fourth-quarter touchdowns against an overmatched Michigan defense on the weekend after Thanksgiving (which, thanks to back-to-back losses against the Wolverines, I will now celebrate on June 3rd, 2023).
This missive is being written via a complicated chess cypher that I'm telegramming one letter at a time to Jason Priestas, sent from an undisclosed location somewhere in the lower Andes. I've retreated to this locale, sustained by the various mosses and lichens I find on rocks, in the hopes that my isolation will bring me respite.
But now I've been told that the Buckeyes somehow backed into the College Football Playoff, playing the Georgia Bulldogs in the Peach Bowl. This seems unlikely, and doubly unwise.
I'm not writing this week's Threat Level to give you insight into what will likely amount to a very frustrating, irritating game against the Bulldogs. Instead, my goal here is to prove to you that Ohio State losing two games in a row to Michigan has fundamentally upset the balance of the universe. Up is down, left is right, my crops go unrotated, and Georgia's offense is good and their defense is bad. Let's start there.
GEORGIA'S OFFENSE
I wish I were named after a hat. "Stetson" is taken, but Homburg Ginter or Zucchetto Ginter or Porkpie Ginter all have a certain je ne sais quoi that I'd be happy to adopt. It'd also be cool if I could throw the ball like Bennett: preferred walk-on past aside, I never really understood why the guy was treated like a runty little basset hound puppy Kirby Smart found in a cardboard box next to a train trestle.
Bennett is very good, and has been. He's in the top 15 in every relevant quarterbacking category for 2022, and this simply continues a trend from last year as well, when he was 4th in the country in quarterback rating. Yes, his yards per attempt is down, and no, his wideouts aren't fantastic, but he's got all-world tight ends to complete 70% of his passes to and I'm not sure why that isn't supposed to freak me out.
Also: Georgia's running game. The Buckeyes have had a garbage booty running game for the past few months, and statistically Georgia is only a little better overall. But "only a little better overall" makes them a top 10 rushing offense in the country in terms of yards per carry, which also gives me the rumbly tummies.
Long story short: Georgia is averaging almost 40 points a game and probably not infuriating their fans in the process. Or maybe Ohio State fans are just easily infuriated. Doesn't matter. They're good.
Joshua L. Jones / USA TODAY NETWORK
GEORGIA'S DEFENSE
Actually, Georgia's defense can get got. LSU just stunted for over 500 yards of passing against these guys, and yeah it was en route to a 50-30 blowout loss, but you have to think that Ohio State can hold the Bulldogs to, I dunno... 40 points, 45 max.
Going down the rest of the games here, there's uh, not a lot to include in this section. Is Jalen Carter really that great? Yes! But what if... no? What if the guy who is projected to be a top-five NFL Draft pick is actually an enormous clownfraud, and Ohio State just runs Miyan Williams 45 times up the gut in highly predictable gap blocking plays, but unlike the other ten thousand times Ryan Day tried that this season, it actually works?
That's admittedly dumb. All signs point to Georgia's defense being Actually Good, but I will say this: I wonder how much they actually worry about C.J. Stroud and company, given their recent failure against the Bayou Bengals. Here's an innocuous quote that I'll happily blow out of proportion:
“It just showed some of the things we’ve got to work on, so we have been attacking that in practice and working to get better,” Georgia inside linebacker Smael Mondon said Tuesday, adding that defensive backs and other defensive players have been “staying after practice trying to get more work. Just trying to get better and fix whatever issues we’ve got.”
Woah woah woah, "fix... issues"??? Sounds like Georgia's got a secondary problem! Buckeyes by a million.
THREAT LEVEL
The past few years have felt like a ridiculous fever dream that we've all been desperate to wake up from. Everything good is now bad and everything bad has gotten worse. Which is why I now live in an abandoned lead mine and train an army of moles to defend my squatter's rights once society collapses.
But maybe things can be fixed, even with a SEVERE Threat Level. Maybe, just maybe, Ohio State can roll down for some risky business in the A and pull out an improbable win against Georgia in their backyard. Maybe a strange thing will happen and set the universe right again.
But probably not! See you underground!
