ANALYSIS: Ohio State goals still in play, but much work to be done

Obviously the ideal scenario for any team is to come out and dominate every game. Never face much stress — at least beyond the first two quarters or so — win it all, and hang the banner.

Ideal scenarios rarely materialize, of course. Yet this year such a reality seemed more possible and more desirable for this Ohio State team than most based on the last few seasons.

Maybe the latter is really pie-in-the-sky thinking, but stress has not been great for the Buckeyes lately.

Jim Tressel’s teams thrived in the clutch to the point fans got burned out on it.

“Why can’t they just dominate a full game once in a while?” was a common complaint on message boards in that era.

There is probably some truth to the idea Tressel’s teams could have beaten more teams more soundly with a different style of play, but perhaps that would have opened them up to more upsets.

Urban Meyer’s teams throttled pretty much everyone but had a couple of head-scratching losses, too, so the approaches had their pros and cons.

Both yielded, more often than not, Big Ten championships — not to mention one national title apiece and a combined 16 wins over Michigan.

That informs some of the level of angst just one loss — by one point, on the road against a top 3 team — has unleashed across Ohio and beyond.

Of course, the level of competition matters.

That can be in the eye of the beholder, but the best teams on the schedule have probably been better the last few years than they typically were in the first decade of the 2000s (Tressel’s tenure) and certainly better than the Meyer years that followed.

The middle class of the Big Ten might be worse, too, while Ohio State has had more talent ever since the Meyer recruiting machine kicked in 12 years ago.

That can be a double-edged sword because prospects sometimes turn into suspects, but nothing reduces the expectations created by winning a lot on the field and on the recruiting trail.

Undoubtedly some of Ohio State’s recent big game woes really do come down to chance. Maybe if they play the 2022 Georgia game and the 2023 Michigan game again, the ball bounces another direction a time or two and the Buckeyes win.

That’s an element of sports, and the Buckeyes have gotten good bounces at times as well, including at Notre Dame last fall.

Maybe they’ll benefit from the next one, but only time will tell.

Between now and then, much will be debated, analyzed and picked apart.

That is all part of the deal. Sometimes it can be fun and other times agonizing.

So, the expectation to blow out every bad team and even to win the “matchup games” handily is interesting.

Perhaps it creates unrealistic expectations that have negative consequences, creating more pressure that could lead to more mistakes.

But maybe that is simply the only way.

Ryan Day has obviously been trying hard to find different ways to motivate his team, and so far the returns are inconclusive.

“It takes what it takes,” was a mantra of longtime Alabama coach Nick Saban.

The national championship coach meant sometimes people — perhaps especially young ones who make up college sports teams — clock out for the day thinking they have done all they can do until tomorrow when that is not really the case.

That can prevent them from truly maximizing themselves because there is always more to do.

Perfection may be impossible, but sometimes just cutting out one mistake could make all the difference in a game like Ohio State lost Saturday night.

For Ohio State, losing the Oregon game was far from the end of the world for multiple reasons.

Ohio State’s season goals are not only all still on the table, the Buckeyes just about control their own destiny.

If they win out, they can’t finish worse than tied for second in the Big Ten and would have tiebreakers over Penn State and Indiana. (Maybe there could be some tiebreaker shenanigans if Illinois and/or Wisconsin also win out, but let’s not worry about that right now.)

Winning their last six will not be easy, especially with a trip to Penn State in a few weeks. Nebraska and Indiana should come to Ohio Stadium with at least puncher’s chances, too, and not even the youngest Ohio State fans out there should be taking any win over Michigan for granted no matter how the Wolverines look in a given season.

In a “natty or bust” season, the Buckeyes are likely to be able to make the expanded College Football Playoff even if they lose to Penn State, but no one envisioned backing into the playoff as a double-digit seed when this roster was being constructed last winter.

So the loss to Oregon means Ohio State’s margin for error is gone, at least as far as winning the Big Ten, but that also plays right back into Day’s demand his team learns to leave no doubt.

Some strategic keys need to be ironed out, especially on defense, where the secondary was conspicuously bad at Oregon and the line was just inconspicuous.

These last six games should tell us a lot about just what Ohio State has on the roster and maybe more importantly on the coaching staff after three years of disappointment and one exciting offseason led to a campaign believed to have such promise.

SATURDAY’S GAME

Nebraska at Ohio State, Noon, Fox, 1410