The Situational: Four Seasons

Ordinary Ohio State football years feature four beautiful seasons, and you know them by heart:

1. Non-conference
2. Conference
3. Michigan
4. Postseason

These seasons are imbalanced - we can only remember the One Good Opponent from each year's non-conference slate. Boring conference wins are quickly forgotten but the shocking losses linger for years. Michigan is Michigan. The rest is holiday cheer. Four seasons!

It's a blessed calendar for a program that rarely participates in close games, let alone loses them. This year we only get eight* of them but they're conveniently portioned into equal home/away courses and categories:

1. Blueblood Season
2. B1G Network Expansion Season
3. Non-Iowa "I" Season
4. Michigan Season

Ohio State closes out the Cable TV portion of the sprint in Maryland on Saturday which will bring us to the halfway point (!) of a college football season that began oh like 20 minutes ago, during a year that's lasted a decade and won't conclude for another century.

Maryland closes out our summer and somehow the B1G Game of the Year against the Indiana Hoosiers could be what kicks off the fall. If you were waiting for something expected to happen in 2020 hopefully you're not hoping your breath.

Summer ends on Saturday night. Fall happens next. Winter is coming. Let's get Situational.

OPENING: PARALLEL UNIVERSE

Nov 17, 2018: Taivon Jacobs catches a pass over Shaun Wade during the fourth quarter at Maryland Stadium | ©Tommy Gilligan USAT Sports

Earth and Earth Two are in perfect alignment. We have reached B1G singularity.

The Buckeyes are facing the Terrapins in Maryland on both of 2020's planets this weekend in an eclipse marking the only game that stayed in place while the rest of the orbits shuffled. For Ohio State, these meetings with Maryland are common. They average over 60 a game against the Terps in November. In football.

October would have been more favorable for the home team - that's the month the Buckeyes have only been hanging 54 on them then - so expect a lot of points this Saturday as both a function of history and the Buckeyes' current, prolific offense. Terps will aim to get into a shootout with the visitors and try to end up with more points when the clock expires.

Don't laugh. That's what almost happened last time.

INTERMISSION: THE SOLO

The search for a unique 1980s solo arrived Sunday afternoon following the news of Alex Trebek's passing. It reminded me of Weird Al's I Lost on Jeopardy, which features OG Voice of God Don Pardo as the solo.

That is as idiosyncratic as a solo can get - except Art Fleming hosted Jeopardy back then, so blah. But that melancholy rabbit hole reminded me of the worst Weird Al parody ever conceived, recorded or produced, Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch.

Al's record label went nuclear and refused to release his Dare to be Stupid album unless it included a Cyndi Lauper parody, as she was America's hottest female solo artist of 1984. A hostage situation ensued, Al lost and Girls was conceived. I think he made it bad on purpose out of spite.

It features armpit fart solo. Let's answer our two questions.

Is the soloist in this video actually playing the armpit?

Al's early catalog regularly included armpit farts accentuating traditional instruments. On Another One Rides the Bus the armpit fart acts as a second bass. On I Love Rocky Road it's another rhythm guitar. On Girls it appears for the solo, backed by a xylophone. VERDICT: The only instrument Al plays better than his armpit is the accordion. Yes.

Does this armpit solo slap?

The song just absolutely sucks, but if you cannot enjoy a good armpit fart solo you're a joyless person. We need every bit of joy we can find in 2020. And Al paired the armpit fart with a xylophone? Your move, Bach. VERDICT: Slaps.

THE BOURBON

There is a bourbon for every situation. Sometimes the spirits and the events overlap, which means that where bourbon is concerned there can be more than one worthy choice.

The 1812. From Maryland, still bourbon.

Occasionally the comments to these columns will attract a well-intentioned reader confidently stating that bourbon has to come from Kentucky, which is not true. This confuses bourbon with champagne, which has to come from Champagne.

Bourbon whiskey only has to come from America. Kentucky has enough blue limestone, corn-friendly dirt and history to align its natural supply chain to the country's best liquor. Kentucky is also in America.

Maryland may pride itself in crabcakes and football but few states have a stronger whiskey legacy than it does. That's partially because its land is to rye what Kentucky's is to corn. Maryland whiskey rises, falls and rises again due throughout American history - if you're unfamiliar with the Whiskey Rebellion you should remedy that soon.

That brings us to 1812 Maryland Bourbon Whiskey, which is comprised of two single-barrel bourbons, blended with enough Maryland rye to put your nostril hairs on notice. Well-intentioned drinkers will also say this can't be a bourbon since it is a blend, but that's just confusing rules for single malt scotch with other scotch varieties, which are also legitimate scotch. You don't have to like anything you don't enjoy. You just can't say it isn't real.

Rules are important, but so is understanding them. Maryland is a B1G program, somehow. The only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing, and for the seventh straight season I cannot adequately explain how or why the Terps are a conference opponent. I just know they are.

CLOSING: THE OLAVE ENDING

Nov 7, 2020: Jaxson Smith-Njigba focuses on reeling in a pass during the Rutgers game.

It does not feel like Ohio State can lose a regular season game in 2020 to anything but the virus.

That's not because of a suffocating defense or an unstoppable ground attack - it's because the Buckeyes can dial up a passing play whenever they feel like it and roll Justin Fields out, where he'll find whichever receiver is open and hit him in the hands with the football. If he's allowed to release and run - that hasn't really happened yet - it would be successful.

If for whatever reason the Buckeyes face a team with two lockdown corners (they won't) they can always break the In Case of Emergency Glass and spray the field with passes to 5-star receivers whom unlucky backup defensive backs or weakside linebackers are doomed to chase.

You may recall how the world and Don Brown were first introduced to Chris Olave. Parris Campbell, Johnnie Dixon and Terry McLaurin went from starters to shiny objects for a moment.

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Olave and Garrett Wilson have not been covered through three games. There's a reason you haven't seen Four Verts or any classic spread passing formations yet. That gun is sitting safely in storage until it's needed.

On Saturday night Julian Fleming dropped a touchdown pass against Rutgers that was all queued up to become the GIF we'd be watching on repeat this entire week. Instead we spent Sunday futzing about what went wrong in the 2nd half before we realized it didn't matter, because as long as the Buckeyes and their opponents stay above virus thresholds - Ohio State is going to win the football game.

Which brings us to addressing our so-called false sense of security.

There are guys on that list whom everyone knows are good enough. Maybe they're not experienced, probably not polished - but definitely good enough! Will anyone be surprised if Gee Scott Jr. flashes this season? Kameron Babb? Fleming, now that he can't get that dropped touchdown out of his head? Mookie Cooper?

Those guys have one catch, total. It doesn't matter. There are no projects among them.

RELATED The Situational Whiskey Cellar

Zone Six is largely on the sideline, teeming with potential, ready and willing to take over any football game if necessary or if the regulars and their suddenly active Tight End counterparts are either unavailable or disinterested.

All I'm saying is Olave's biggest game of 2018 was against Michigan, with a loaded receiver room available. Wilson's biggest game of 2019 was against Michigan, with a loaded receiver room available. That emergency glass will be broken whether there's an emergency or not.

Thanks for getting Situational today. Go Bucks. Beat Maryland. Take care of each other.