Ohio State hired two-time national championship winning coach Urban Meyer 13 years ago. A vocal minority of Buckeye fans had concerns.
First among them was his style of play. However effective it may have been in Gainesville, the spread betrayed Ohio State's legacy and fight song lyrics. The elder wing was fearful the Buckeyes would pivot to some trendy warm-weather 7-on-7 variant. We would forget who we were!
Power spread with Braxton Miller and Carlos Hyde behind a ferocious OL erased their anxiety. Going 12-0 with a postseason ban as the destination was also pacifying. This is fine.
Second, Urban's Florida Gators were famously messy off the field, save for the Heisman pastor he had at quarterback for four seasons. Jim Tressel had just threaded the needle for building rosters containing dudes you would want as sons-in-law with guys who have a precise number of screws loose. Complementary football.
That optimized mix of saints and heathens served Ohio State well. Meyer's starting quarterback for most of his Columbus tenure - one of those son-in-law guys, ironically - picked up an OVI during a bye weekend. Non-football related trouble involving one of his assistants ultimately got him suspended in his final season.
Otherwise, Meyer's rosters were boy scout troops by comparison to what he had in Gainesville. Outcomes overwhelmed the hiccups and concerns. This is fine, we'll keep this.
Third, and it was a poorly kept secret - Urban burns dangerously hot. He sent himself to the ER at Florida and into premature retirement. There was little reason to believe he could be the Knute Rockniest version of himself in Columbus without stepping into predictable health hazards.
Day's winning percentage is almost the same as Meyer's when you look at their records, similar to how lead is almost gold when you look at the periodic table.
Of course his shelf life was under constant assault. It was still a de-risked head coaching hire. Buckeye fans got a gruesome firsthand look at what his Gators could do.
It turned out Ohio State's style of play didn't matter at all, just as long as it accompanied a committed identity with triumphant results. Tresselball was often maddening, but the success was undeniable. We had seen how John Cooper's teams looked like they were playing a different sport in September and October than they downshifted into each November.
That was not okay. It would never be okay. That level of good enough was unacceptable. Thirteen years of debating what good enough looked like was solved by Tressel and confirmed by Meyer.
The closest the Buckeyes came to a troubling identity shift post-Coop was during the middle of Meyer's tenure, when he fell in love with the numbers advantage presented by the quarterback running the ball. He brought in a brave and innovative young offensive coach who turned that conservative predictability around quickly.
Urban's play-calling turtling cost his teams a couple of Michigan State games, but the Buckeyes still beat Michigan every single year and went to Indianapolis almost every season. That made it forgivable. Outcomes uber alles, but please figure out who you are because we want to enjoy watching this, too.
Ohio State had been an unmysterious, relentlessly demanding fan base for over a century - but we actually learned something new about ourselves during the Meyer Era: Just Win The Game. Secure opportunities every type of title. Acquire jewelry. Run the conference. The rest is just details.
Regression of style points was permissible if the trophy cases were still being expanded. Woody did a fair bit of that too, but the style-of-play catalog back then was limited.
That realization over the past decade created a wider berth for his successor, who had no head coaching experience but quickly transformed Meyer's security blanket offense in a single season.
And now we are here, four seasons removed from any jewelry or conference title game appearances. The raison d'être for Ryan Day's ascendance has since dissolved. Innovation, as a brand, has been replaced with trepidation. It's Cooperish, from the Septembers to the Novembers.
The past four years have erased season-ending traditions which had been established and solidified for two decades. Day's winning percentage is almost the same as Meyer's when you look at their records, similar to how lead is almost gold when you look at the periodic table.
He has taken the no.2 team in the country into the final game of the regular season four years in a row, which means he's doing more than a few things right - it's not a wholesale failure. But his record in that game and the ones that follow illuminate what has separated him from the level of job security a coach with his record would enjoy literally anywhere else. Cooperish. We've been here before.
The good news this week is that Day's self-proclaimed Natty or Bust team can extend its journey on Saturday by beating a Southeastern Conference team for the first time in 10 seasons. If they're successful we will be rewarded with thinking about football games for another week, rather than ruminating over program crossroads.
And we'll be free to celebrate a big win. Let's get first-ever Home Playoff Game Situational -
OPENER | FREEDOM FROM FEAR
TreVeyon Henderson runs upfield against Indiana at Ohio Stadium in November. Ohio State won 38-15. © Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
The Buckeyes don't have any talent or motivational deficiencies. Like, at all. Injuries are standard.
Rickety offensive line or not, Ohio State had a couple dozen paths to victory in its final regular season game yet figured out a way to forfeit all of them to an overmatched opponent.
Confidence is the only deficiency - and it's largely reserved to observers who are not going to be able to reconcile how millionaire coaches drew up a game plan for Michigan that, had it leaked prior to the game, would have caused Ohio's government to declare a state of emergency. No hindsight necessary, this turd was floating in the water before kickoff.
That fan anxiety entering Saturday night is adhered to if Day will prioritize proving his way does work, actually by stubbornly attempting it again to prove his detractors wrong. He has not beaten the He'd Rather Be Right Than Change charges this season, he has only accumulated more violations.
Day and his mentor have forfeited the benefit of the doubt after authoring a horror story which will be talked about in the state long after both of them are out of coaching. It was so bad it's very difficult to tell - fans, at least - to just move on.
This is where Kirk Herbstreit was right about Ohio Stadium crowds, which is why a Tennessee fan infusion might actually be helpful. Buckeyes wear their trauma on their faces, and the first 3rd and short that runs directly into a TFL will cause that building to make a sound we're too familiar with. Hostility will always sound more welcome than insubordination.
Ohio State has chosen to be relentless with proving points instead of scoring them.
That said, this is entirely about what Ohio State's coaching staff chooses to do. Slowing down the Buckeye offense to give Jeremiah Smith, Emeka Egbuka and Carnell Tate fewer opportunities was a choice, and it's one every opponent would favor.
Ohio State would be wise to get away from this tendency against Tennessee, and even wiser to build an early lead against an offense that doesn't really score all that well - instead of fertilizing the visitors' confidence with unwarranted reasons to believe they can win.
Making the current version of the Ohio State OL the focal point of the offense was also a choice, and it's one every opponent would welcome. Targeting tight ends in the passing game instead of receivers is a choice. Using Smith, Egbuka and Tate as decoys is a choice.
Passing up 4th down opportunities in plus territory to rely on this special teams unit is a choice, and it's one every opponent would favor. Unfortunately, it's also what Day has been favoring, which is why his mental acuity and emotional intelligence during the chaotic fog of football games have emerged as disqualifiers for the job he has.
We all know what his team can and cannot do. But does Ohio State's head coach know?
This isn't purgatory - it doesn't even take one lucid game hammering Ohio State's strengths instead of choosing to illuminate its weaknesses to table all succession discussions. The Buckeyes lost to Georgia after blowing two 14-point leads and that loss is still talked about with reverence because it demonstrated the Day who got promoted to the job still lives, somewhere, inside of the guy hell-bent on proving meaningless points about toughness.
He has a real opportunity to completely flip fan cynicism over the next month, starting with Saturday. Trying to decide what the offensive line should look like the week of a playoff game feels at best like bad luck and at worst like grasping at straws. They have to figure out a way to not make the OL the story of the game. Fix it in the offseason and win now. That's what the money is for.
Beating a team with Tennessee's defensive line depth and talent requires neutralizing them with scheme, not skill. Ohio State has chosen to be relentless with proving points instead of scoring them. If the Buckeyes choose to be relentless in making opposing defenses uncomfortable instead of feeding them confidence, Day can take the road less traveled to what he's chosen in big games over the past four seasons.
Ironically, it's the road that got him the job in the first place. He was unafraid of overusing mesh concepts against man-defenses when he was just a playcaller. He didn't get bored running JK Dobbins left when running JK Dobbins left was a free five-yard gain.
And screen passes to either running back, especially TreVeyon Henderson can only be stopped by offensive penalties. He has nothing to fear but fear. I swear I saw someone say that in a speech once.
INTERMISSION
The Solo
The last time we had to tolerate the unforgivable phrase Defending National Champion Michigan Wolverines it was following the 1997 season. This year, intermissions will pay homage to that cursed year's Billboard Hot 100.
You come out at night. That's when the energy comes. Prescient opening lyrics for this Saturday's banger beneath the stars from Sarah "Seth" McLachlan, Canada's finest melancholy musician and one of the better humans North America has produced since the Vikings stumbled into it.
Building a Mystery contains an electric guitar solo. Let's answer our two questions.
Is the musician in the video actually playing the electric guitar?
McLachlan handles all guitars on the album and outsources this solo when she's touring, sticking with her Baby Taylor acoustic throughout the show. but there's a deeper message here.
Building a Mystery is about someone who puts on a facade to hide insecurities everyone knows they have, while in reality just being their authentic self is more attractive. Come closer to the screen, reader. This whole song is Ryan Day subtext.
That's why this week's intermission has all of us in the arms of an angel. The Situational doesn't do coincidences. Solos, schmolos - just be true to yourself. VERDICT: Inconclusive.
does this electric guitar solo slap?
Seth McLaughlin saved Ohio State's running game until one of his load-bearing tendons betrayed him. Before his injury, it's fair to say Ohio State salvaged Seth's college legacy. Sarah McLachlan saved Darryl McDaniels of Run DMC and they remain collegial to this day. We could all use a little saving.
On Saturday and over the next three games that follow, authenticity and fearlessness are available to save the Buckeyes' season. They just have to choose wisely. 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.
Obtainium, from the Cat's Eye Distillery.
Tennessee whiskey has appeared sporadically in this series over the past 13 years in part because it gets a bad rap from the Kentucky Industrial Complex. Tennessee whiskey ranges from terrible to serviceable to exquisite. The Volunteer State has the whole portfolio.
But Obtainium isn't from Tennessee. This week's selection happens to be aged just north of six years, which overlaps with Ryan Day's tenure as Ohio State's acting and then permanent head coach.
It also carries a modest degree of difficulty to procure, kind of like a home college football playoff game - only four of those this year - which is four more than every single other season prior to 2024 combined. I did the math, you can double-check it.
Obtainium is a blending scheme Cat's Eye runs out of Iowa, which puts them in the snowflake business - it's really hard to come up with what they assemble more than once. This 6+ year vintage has the exact same mash bill as Maker's Mark, which makes it a wheated bourbon (70/16/14 corn/wheat/barley).
But then it's aged similarly to Jack Daniels Single Barrel with the same entry proofing that's used in Lynchburg. The result is...a bit of a mess? Butterfinger heated up in one of those chafing fuel cups that keep buffet trays warm, and you accidentally made contact with the blue stuff in it but ate it anyway. That's what I got from Obtainium.
Cannot figure out what they were trying to do here, but that's Cat's Eye's whole purpose so that probably means they nailed it. Drink whatever you like. Be who you are. Send Tennessee home sad.
CLOSER | PRACTICAL OPTIMISM
Davison Igbinosun celebrates his interception at the end of the first half against Penn State at Beaver Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. © Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
There's no reason to allow the worst-case scenario to poison your ability to enjoy a home playoff game. If it happens, you have a pretty good idea what the next nine months will feel like.
Losing a sub-freezing home game to an SEC program has the potential to approach Glendale Massacre-levels of national humiliation. Allowing a stinky Michigan team to suffocate you at home while favored by three touchdowns comes with a lifetime of embarrassment, but that's just how rivalry dark magic works sometimes.
Tennessee securing the invitation to Pasadena would be exponentially worse. An indictment of the entire conference, Ohio's statehood, the Theory of Relativity and life itself. That timeline doesn't exist.
The only reality is our current one, which has the Buckeyes practicing outside and getting high on Lessons Learned while the Volunteers are wearing shorts in a warehouse to prepare for Saturday night.
Ohio State won the offseason coming off a third humiliation in Ann Arbor and a bowl game performance no one wants to acknowledge actually happened. The Buckeyes then found a way to lose the regular season, which is meaningful but quite containable.
They can bookend that disappointment by simply choosing to win the postseason, which was how this roster and campaign were constructed. No program beats Ohio State quite like Ohio State does.
Just staying out of their own way for four more games will give 2024 a whole new epitaph. The best month of this decade might just be the one we're entering Saturday.
Thanks for getting Situational today. Go Bucks. Beat Tennessee.
