When and Where Does the Ohio State Football Play Again

A series of mistakes and some coaching decisions that volition live in Iron Bowl infamy give Auburn the elevation spot in the terminal Misery Alphabetize of 2021, a weekly measurement of knee-jerk reactions based on what each fan base just watched.

Four MORE IN MISERY

Ohio State: It would be difficult to accept more confidence in anything on Globe than Buckeyes fans well-nigh the matchup with Michigan. The rivalry — if you could telephone call information technology that — had become so predictable, so 1-sided then non-threatening over the final decade that it was hard to blame them for thinking this would go on forever. Or at least as long as Jim Harbaugh was on the other sideline.

And this yr, in particular, Ohio State fans thought their team had a real shot to win the national title. The defense had been improving throughout the season. Quarterback C.J. Stroud was clicking toward a Heisman Trophy. Certain, Michigan was having a cute little season, simply how were they going to ho-hum down those Buckeye receivers?

What Ohio Country fans could not have envisioned was how thoroughly Michigan could flip the script on them, non just winning the game only physically dominating it 42-27 with 297 rushing yards. Though the Buckeyes theoretically had chances belatedly to get one defensive stop and drive to tie the game, they didn't come up close to slowing Michigan down because they couldn't win the line of scrimmage. And as a consequence, Ohio Country isn't going to the College Football Playoff.

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That'due south not how this series is supposed to get, or how it's gone recently when Michigan looked too slow to keep up with the Buckeyes. This fourth dimension around, they made Ohio Land look soft and won for the first time since 2011.

The Buckeyes have one of the greatest programs in the sport, but sometimes yous demand a wake-up call. And the last few years, their defense has gotten bullied when it mattered about.

Hopefully Michigan's win signals that this college football spectacle will become a truthful rivalry again. And in the end, it might make Ohio State fifty-fifty better if it puts force per unit area on Ryan Day to make some adjustments in his defensive approach. Just for now, losing out on the CFP at the easily of Michigan is as tough of a pill as the Buckeyes take had to eat in a long fourth dimension.

Texas A&M: Earlier the season, when the Aggies gave Jimbo Fisher a new x-twelvemonth, $95 1000000 contract to supervene upon the slightly less ridiculous ten-yr, $75 meg contract he was working under previously, we didn't know how much information technology would alter the entire coaching marketplace.

Now, x-yr deals are all the rage. Mel Tucker got one at Michigan State. James Franklin got 1 at Penn State. You take to imagine a few more successful coaches will see the new industry standard and get in line on that gravy train.

Simply 10 years is a very, very long fourth dimension in any profession. Which brings the states back to Fisher. Does anyone actually think that an offense more suited to the last decade (or even 2 decades ago) is going to thrive for the side by side ane? The Aggies' 27-24 loss to LSU ended what can just be considered an underwhelming viii-4 season for the Aggies in which they'll finish 5th in the SEC West. Outside of last season, when Texas A&M nearly made the playoff, Fisher is 13-11 in the SEC. Apparently, 2020 counts too, even though the weirdness of COVID-nineteen benefited some teams more others. But still, that breakthrough came with a quarterback Fisher inherited in Kellen Mond and a veteran offensive line. The final time he actually recruited a deviation-maker at the quarterback position? His proper noun was Jameis Winston at Florida State, which feels like a long time agone.

Fisher's complicated, pro-fashion offense with a thick playbook runs against the grain of where college football has been going the final several years. That has to be a business organisation for Texas A&M fans, who have seen most of the success under Fisher come from the defensive side of the ball under coordinator Mike Elko.

None of this is to suggest that Fisher is about to implode. He's a good coach, and he's got a groovy recruiting class coming in. But is Fisher really someone you want to tie yourself to contractually for the next decade at a crazy salary?

If 2021 was a preview of what Texas A&Chiliad is going to be under Fisher, it'll be ii more years earlier the fans get-go to agitate for changes.

Oklahoma: For a school that has lost but 10 football game games in the past five years, Sooners' fans have been pretty bleak this year. Mayhap that's considering once they really got a expect at this squad, they realized the preseason hype about winning national championships was style off the marking. Information technology could exist a longer-term ennui associated with being very good but a half-step beneath the best of the all-time. Or maybe it's simply that they saw what was coming in a 37-33 loss to Oklahoma State, which now heads to the Big 12 title game instead of Oklahoma and could very well make the Playoff with a win.

Beyond what was at stake from a Big 12 and CFP standpoint, it's never fun to lose to an in-country rival that y'all've consistently been able to handle. It's even worse when that rivalry is about to end, which seems probable as Oklahoma heads into the SEC. Though it'south nonetheless unclear when the Sooners volition brand the jump, a lot of people effectually the state believe this was their last trip to Stillwater for the foreseeable time to come. If so, it'll be hard to feel good most information technology for a diversity of reasons including 12 penalties, going v-for-18 on tertiary down and muffing a punt at the v-grand line with nine:43 to become that set up the Cowboys' go-ahead touchdown. Oklahoma had the brawl three more times after that but never got closer than the Oklahoma State 34-one thousand line.

The skillful news is that afterward the game, Lincoln Riley put to bed any notion that he'south bound for LSU — a rumor that had really picked upwardly momentum in the previous 48 hours in some corners of the world. At the same fourth dimension, amidst Riley'south five seasons as a caput coach, this is the to the lowest degree satisfying in many ways. It'southward the commencement fourth dimension he won't win the Large 12 or stop in the top-10, the first time he'due south lost to Oklahoma Country and the start fourth dimension his offense largely looked pedestrian against decent competition.

Nebraska: The unabridged season for the Cornhuskers was a work of art. Despite finishing 3-9, they actually ended the year with a +63 point differential overall and were a peak-50 team in a lot of the respected analytics. How does that happen? Time and time over again, Nebraska was in games to the very end until a decisive turnover or special teams mistake. They regularly blew leads. In their season finale, they got out-scored nineteen-0 in the quaternary quarter by Iowa in a seven-point loss. In Nebraska'southward eight Big Ten losses, simply ane — a 26-17 loss to Ohio Land — came past more i score. Every week, Nebraska seemed to invent cruel and unusual ways to break its fans' hearts.

Anyone watching Nebraska can acknowledge the comeback the program has made under Scott Frost, who will return for his fifth season in 2022. And nonetheless from a win-loss perspective, the Huskers hit a new depression this year by going but 1-8 in the Big X afterwards winning three conference games in each of Frost'due south previous seasons.

It's almost impossible to know what to make of that information set. Was it bad luck? Was information technology just a unique set of circumstances? Did the losing start to arrive the heads of the players as the season went on? Will things start to even out next year?

What we know for sure is that Frost has a lot of work to practise if he's going to plough information technology around, and information technology's concerning that Nebraska currently has just nine exact commitments — including zero four- or five-star prospects — according to Rivals.com. Whether it'southward through recruiting high school players or the transfer portal, the Huskers have to make some upgrades to the roster and get-go finding ways to close out games instead of falling into the aforementioned dumb mistakes over and again. In 2022, trends and vibes won't matter to the Nebraska fan base anymore. For Frost, it'll be time to win or else.

TRENDING TOWARD MISERY

Penn State: Much like Texas A&Thou, Penn Country is in the odd position of making a massive investment in a coach coming off a very mediocre twelvemonth. After eight seasons in State Higher and with so many prominent jobs open, this seemed like a natural time for James Franklin to make a motility. He's still very well-regarded in the industry, and staying anywhere these days for more than a decade often breeds dissatisfaction. Sometimes it's good for all parties to only go a fresh showtime. Instead, Franklin went the other mode by signing a new 10-year deal worth $70 million to stay. In another context, though, finishing seven-5 later a messy 30-27 loss to Michigan State would have been cause to put him on the hot seat going into side by side year. Penn State lost five of its terminal seven games (beating only Maryland and Rutgers) and is merely 8-10 in the conference over the last two seasons. Franklin has an excellent recruiting class coming in, but the Nittany Lions need a reboot going into 2022.

UTSA: It'southward not often a school gets a hazard at an undefeated flavor — especially ane like UTSA that only began playing as a football programme in 2011 and had never done better than 8-iv. And subsequently a remarkable run this year, including some truly miraculous come up-from-backside wins, all the Roadrunners needed to finish it off was to accept care of a 5-vi North Texas squad. Instead? Heartbreak and disaster. UTSA got blown out, 45-23, and will take to settle for xi-1. The tone was set early in this 1 when UTSA committed a couple special teams turnovers and gave North Texas short fields to build a pb. After such a long season, the Roadrunners just didn't take the juice to mountain a improvement. At one indicate, North Texas led 45-13. In the large picture, UTSA has had a historic season and volition play Western Kentucky next week trying to win a Conference USA title. But information technology may be the just hazard the Roadrunners will ever have at perfection, and they couldn't get the job washed.

TCU: There were all kinds of reasons why it was time for a change at TCU this twelvemonth. But if you're going to become rid of Gary Patterson, who is by far the best motorcoach in schoolhouse history and about singularly responsible for its current membership in the Big 12, don't you accept to hire more of a certain matter than Sonny Dykes? Zippo against Dykes, a very good offensive motorcoach who moves across the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex from SMU, but this isn't some home run. Dykes has been a head omnibus at 3 unlike schools, and his record is a pretty unremarkable 71-63. In four years at SMU, he went xviii-13 in the American and never even played for a conference title. In his previous cease at California, he went xix-30 and got fired. Nosotros can all acknowledge that Patterson had lost his fastball, but TCU made the move early in the flavour largely out of fear that Texas Tech was going to get the jump on Dykes. If you're a TCU fan right at present, even one who idea it was time for Patterson to become, was Dykes actually worth all of that upheaval? Information technology seems like TCU's administration has a slightly unrealistic vision of what information technology's getting in this transaction. Dykes is solid, just he'south not a miracle worker or a hereafter Hall of Famer. If this motility doesn't work out, a lot of people in purple are going to have egg on their face up.

Boise State: The refuse of Broncos football wasn't a huge storyline this flavour, but peradventure information technology should have been. Considering by going 7-5 in his first season, Andy Avalos is responsible for the worst Boise State season since 1998. Between then and at present, the Broncos had done a ton of winning at a really high level and had more or less owned the Mountain Due west. This yr, though, Boise State was good enough to beat the likes of BYU and Fresno State but lost a lot of close games. Had the Broncos beaten San Diego State in their final game, the narrative would have been nigh comeback and momentum. Instead, after a 27-16 loss, it looks similar they take real work to do to get on the same level equally the Aztecs.

North Carolina: For months, everything pointed to Mack Brown having his best squad even so in his second get-round at UNC. Instead, the vi-6 Tar Heels were one of the biggest flops of the entire college football season and fittingly concluded the regular season with a total meltdown against NC State. Leading xxx-21 with ii:12 left, North Carolina gave upwardly a 64-m touchdown, failed to recover an onsides boot, and so gave up some other 54-yard bulldoze in 26 seconds including penalties for roughing the passer and pass interference. It is expected that the Tar Heels will lose quarterback Sam Howell to the NFL, so fifty-fifty though Brown will continue to collect talent, he'll probably have to start over at the most important position. Tar Heel fans hoping for a breakthrough into college football's elite this season volition instead have to brace for something of a rebuild.

TOTALLY Real AND IRRATIONAL MESSAGE BOARD THREADS

"Can't believe we let this terrible Alabama team take the states to OT" — auburnsports.com

"Bring Dorsum Urban" — bucknuts.com (Ohio State)

"Hard to be excited with the direction of the program" — texags.com (Texas A&M)

"Riley withal hasn't figured out halftime adjustments" — ouinsider.com (Oklahoma)

"I don't know when I'll be back" — lions247.com (Penn State)

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Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/columnist/dan-wolken/2021/11/28/ohio-state-loses-out-college-football-playoff-michigan-dominates/8785522002/

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