Most people are not born scary.
I've seen it: pleasant, squishy infants, only a few days or hours old, with nothing on their minds except food, defecation, and sleep. In the process of getting from Step A to B to C and back again they might drive the people around them insane, but they lack the capability for true malice. Give me 99 out of 100 week-old babies, and I can say with near 100% certainty that I could take them in a fair fight.
But there's always that one kid. Birthed into this world clutching a sharpened spork from the canteen, with an angry look in their eye and a capacity for clonking heads together like Moe in the Three Stooges, they're the ones who grow up praying that someone accidentally steps on the heel of their shoe in the lunch line. Oftentimes these people grow up to take their place in the most evil of professions: library workers, high school social studies teachers, waiters at Olive Garden, people who conduct telephone surveys, etc.
But, occasionally, that scariness is mentored and molded into something more productive by a caring coach or non-social studies teacher. Still terrifying to be sure, but the acceptable kind of scary that we broadcast on national television and pay hundreds of dollars to watch in person.
Some of those kids go on to be football players, and some of those kids go on to play for teams that the Buckeyes will encounter this season. This is the story of the scariest opposing players of 2024.
AKRON ZIPS — CJ NUNNALLY, DEFENSIVE END
I do not care that the Zips are 50 point dogs to Ohio State. Maybe you do, and if you want to make a comment along the lines of "ha ha that's not very scary, not very scary at all!" feel free to mash your cloven hooves into the keyboard. I'm not here to tell you how to have a good time.
What I am going to tell you is that Nunnally is a guy who is more than capable of testing Ohio State's offensive line; with 7 sacks and 15.5 tackles for loss in 2023, he's up there with the very best in the country in terms of returning production from that spot. Keep an eye on him in about a week.
WESTERN MICHIGAN — JALEN BUCKLEY, RUNNING BACK
Hey, you know what the Broncos had last season that Ohio State didn't? A 1000 yard rusher, that's what. What's funny is that the Buckeyes still might not end up with one in 2024 if Howard, Judkins, and Henderson are all splitting carries, but Western Michigan will still probably lean heavily on Buckley for the bulk of their running game this season. I don't think that actually means anything but it'll be an interesting contrast between one team that's going for a running back by committee approach and another that's got A Dude who they're going to ride with come hell or high water.
MARSHALL — J.J. ROBERTS, SAFETY
Roberts is similar to a lot of other players on this list in that not only has he been playing college football since roughly 1978, he somehow (it's truly a mystery, how could this have possibly happened?) still has a couple years of eligibility left.
All that experience, starting at Wake Forest and now at Marshall, has made Roberts one of the more dynamic playmakers for the Thundering Herd defense. He had 73 tackles and 2 interceptions last season, and that was despite being somewhat slowed down by injury. In four games he finished with 10 or more tackles.
MICHIGAN STATE — AIDAN CHILES, QUARTERBACK
After Michigan State decided that giving Mel Tucker eight quadrillion dollars was a bad idea as they fired him with cause, they brought in coach Jonathan Smith from Oregon State to hopefully find a way to win football games without any alleged malfeasance. Coming with Smith to East Lansing is Chiles, who as a freshman saw limited action with the Beavers but is a pretty exciting prospect who is A) going to be the starter and B) is still, hilariously, only 18.
Still, Sparty seems excited:
“Dynamic. I can say that in one word,” senior wide receiver Montorie Foster Jr. told reporters. "But if you want me to go more in detail: He's just a dude, man. He makes plays, he stretches plays."
Mark Hoffman / USA TODAY NETWORK
IOWA — JAY HIGGINS, LINEBACKER
Higgins was the leading tackler in America last season, with 171 total stops (79 of which were solo). And while the obvious rejoinder to that factoid is that anybody could get that many tackles when they play for a defense forced to be on the field for 85% of total game time, my response to your snarky attempt at undermining Higgins' accomplishments is that only like five guys in the last decade of college football have had a more productive season than Higgins had in 2023.
Plus he's a first team All-Big Ten and an AP Preseason All-America, which is less impressive and I probably shouldn't have ended with that fact.
OREGON — DILLION GABRIEL, QUARTERBACK
It is literally true that Dillon Gabriel has been playing college football since The Year of Our Lord 2019. In that time, continents have collapsed into the ocean, Earth has been twice invaded by aliens, the Great Pyramid of Giza has been reduced to a tiny nub by wind and sand erosion, I've been forced to endure eons of the dumbest possible Michigan football discourse online... and Gabriel? He has played for three football programs while passing for nearly 15,000 total yards during yet another attempt to win a national title in his second senior season (two years removed from his second junior season).
Get a real job, is what I'm saying! You're 39 years old, Dillon! Aren't you a little old to be throwing a ball around?
Anyway: Gabriel is very good, and likely the best offensive player Ohio State will face all season; in 2023 he completed nearly 70% of his passes for 3660 yards and 30 touchdowns. He's so good that the Buckeyes wanted the Oklahoma transfer to play for them instead of the Ducks, but then Phil Knight backed up a Brinks truck filled with Spanish doubloons into Gabriel's driveway and the rest is history, he angrily typed while trying to convince himself that Will Howard is a better fit for Chip Kelly's offense.
NEBRASKA — NASH HUTMACHER, DEFENSIVE TACKLE
There are probably better/more impactful players for the Cornhuskers than Hutmacher, but I chose him because in addition to being very good (8 tackles for loss and 4.5 sacks in 2023), he's also a wrestler for Nebraska, which makes him a special kind of crazy that I don't think anyone wants to mess with.
PENN STATE — ABDUL CARTER, LINEBACKER/EDGE
Carter had a decent 2023, combining for 10 TFLs and sacks, but this is an instance where James Franklin may be forced to play this guy on every single defensive snap: he's potentially their best linebacker and their best defensive lineman, so expect to see him shifting all over the damn place while the Nittany Lions attempt to maximize his effectiveness.
I did not consider Drew Allar in this spot, and I don't care how often the national media tries to convince me that he's Good, Actually. Until he manages to show up against an opponent with a pulse (Penn State played four ranked teams last season, and Allar completed fewer than 50% of his passes against three of them), he's about as scary as a lightly toasted chicken salad sandwich.
PURDUE — DILLON THIENEMAN, SAFETY
Last season, 18 college football players had 5 or more interceptions. Only one of them was a freshman, and that was Dillon Thieneman, who finished 2023 with 6.
Thieneman is one of those dudes who would put some kind of witches' hex on Will Howard if Ohio State was playing in Ross-Ade at night, but since that's not the case I feel a little better about whatever dark magic Purdue Pete has in store later on in the season.
NORTHWESTERN — XANDER MUELLER, LINEBACKER
Mueller is exactly the kind of player that Pat Fitzgerald loves, in that he's a hard-nosed defensive player who racks up a very respectable amount of tackles, makes lays, and has done so with startling consistency since he became a starter.
Unfortunately for Fitz, he got fired for Shrek-related reasons before the beginning of last season, so new head coach David Braun got to enjoy the fruits of Mueller's labor. Braun is cut from the same square-jawed Midwestern, former defensive player mold that Fitzgerald is (and is younger than me, a fact I find deeply annoying), and so I'm sure he and Mueller are getting along swimmingly.
INDIANA — KURTIS ROURKE, QUARTERBACK
A transfer from the Ohio Bobcats, Rourke is fine, occasionally approaching okay. Here's some wildly tepid praise from head coach Curt Cignetti:
"I think Rourke stacks days,” Cignetti said. “He had an off day or two last week where maybe he wasn't good in 7-on-7 and came back and had a good two minute drill. For the most part, he's been playing good football.”
Wow!
MICHIGAN — MASON GRAHAM, DEFENSIVE TACKLE
I could've picked a lot of guys from Michigan's defense here (not their offense, which will largely suck), but I went with Graham not because I think he's Michigan's best player (that's cornerback Will Johnson), but because I did a coin flip between him and fellow lineman Kenneth Grant and Graham was tails. Combined they continue to be probably the best interior defensive lineman duo in the country, which means either Michigan's anemic NIL budget went to like three players or there's some horrible secret lurking in their past that the NFL knows about.
It's probably the former because Graham and Grant have been unironically calling each other "peanut butter and jelly" in the offseason. I thought that Harbaugh's departure from Michigan might've made the program at least slightly less obnoxiously corny, but alas!
Have you been sufficiently scarily spooked, dear reader? Have you wet your pants in horror and dread? Worry not! The solution to the grim gridiron anxiety that you are surely feeling is to stay tuned for more of the Eleven Warriors 2024 Ohio State Football Season Preview!
