Ohio

Forde-Yard Dash: Ohio State Still Likely a CFP Team, But Questions Persist

Published

1 year ago

October 13, 2024

Forde-Yard Dash: Ohio State Still Likely a CFP Team, But Questions Persist

Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football, where players are encouraged to keep their saliva to themselves:

The 12-team College Football Playoff is a wellspring of hope and excitement for dozens of fan bases. But as the losses accrue, it also will be a source of discontent for those who see their chances slipping away. Each week, The Dash will identify 12 people dealing with damaged playoff hopes, and gauge their teams’ chances of rebounding from calamity.

Ohio State Buckeyes collective donors (1)

The players they spent $20 million on to lure through the portal or keep away from the NFL draft weren’t as good Saturday night as the players the Oregon Ducks spent lavishly on to lure through the portal or keep away from the NFL draft. Or maybe it was that the Ohio State head coach, and the former UCLA head coach swiped to be the offensive coordinator, and the defensive coordinator making $2.2 million, weren’t as good as Oregon counterparts Dan Lanning, Will Stein and Tosh Lupoi.

Whoever you want to blame for a tense, 32–31 loss to the Ducks, it’s open season. This loss may produce no lasting damage, but Ohio State fans went into the season looking to replicate Michigan’s 15–0 championship run of 2023. That’s now gone by the wayside, and this is a fan base that doesn’t handle defeat with great aplomb. So it’s time to proceed directly to condemnation and outrage.

Will Ryan Day ever win a truly big game again? Will Jim Knowles’s defense ever stop an elite offense? Will star rush ends J.T. Tuimoloau and Jack Sawyer get a sack when it matters most? Will Chip Kelly’s offense devolve into praying for Emeka Egbuka and Jeremiah Smith to be nonstop heroes who carry it all on their backs? Will Will Howard get a better internal clock?

So many questions. After an open date, we’ll start drilling down for answers. For now, they’ll stay angry in Columbus.

Ohio State’s chances of making the playoff: Better than any other one-loss team—losing by a point on the road to Oregon isn’t bad at all. But a second loss could make things dicey, which will make the back half of the season a bit sweaty. Remember that the Buckeyes played a nonconference schedule of Akron, Western Michigan and Marshall, which could be used against them in the selection process. The next two opponents (Nebraska and Penn State on the road) are a combined 11–1. The last two opponents are undefeated Indiana and nemesis Michigan.

If the Buckeyes don’t win the Big Ten championship game, an 11–2 record is almost assuredly in. A 10–2 Ohio State also is likely in, but less a sure thing than 11–2. A 9–3 Ohio State team is in trouble.

Everyone in Oklahoma, but most notably in Norman (2)

The Oklahoma State Cowboys are one of the busts of the season at 3–3, 0–3 in the Big 12. But the guys truly on the griddle today are the Oklahoma Sooners, who are 4–2 after being throttled by the rival Texas Longhorns on Saturday.

The two programs have played each other 120 times. Texas has beaten Oklahoma by 30 or more points eight times, and 25% of those have been in the past three meetings. There was a 49–0 humiliation in 2022 when the Sooners had to play their third-string quarterback most of the game, and then there was this 34–3 disaster in which they have no excuse other than simply being bad.

The common thread between them: Oklahoma coach Brent Venables, master of the Red River rollover. He’s now the first coach in Sooner history to have a pair of 30-plus-point losses to Texas on his resume.

Venables is a defensive guy who is lacking an offense and seems to have horribly mismanaged his quarterback situation. Dillon Gabriel was the hero of Oklahoma’s win over Texas last year, but Saturday he was the hero for Oregon against Ohio State. Maybe Gabriel was leaving Norman no matter what, but the Sooners seemed perfectly comfortable letting him go because they were high on touted recruit Jackson Arnold.

Arnold has proven to be turnover-prone, and he was benched during the loss to Tennessee on Sept. 21 in favor of freshman Michael Hawkins Jr. That now might have been a panic move, because Hawkins has not been the answer either. The reluctance to turn back to Arnold during the flailing performance Saturday was curious.

Venables was strangely given a raise and extension in the spring. That decision looks even more dubious now, given his 20–12 record (11–10 in conference play). Venables might be too expensive to fire, but offensive coordinator Seth Littrell isn’t.

Oklahoma’s chances of making the playoff: The Sooners (4–2) might need to win out in the regular season, and with four remaining ranked opponents that is highly unlikely.

Walker Jones (3)

He runs the The Grove collective for the Mississippi Rebels, and he did bang-up work helping put together a fancy roster. Just one problem: unserious coach Lane Kiffin is still losing big games.

The most recent: Saturday at the LSU Tigers, 29–26 in overtime. This was a gut buster—LSU never led until the winning play, just hanging around as Ole Miss (4–2) failed to put the Tigers away. The Rebels came in leading the SEC in sacks and produced zero, while giving up six. Kiffin’s renowned offensive acumen produced zero touchdowns in Mississippi’s last eight possessions.

Mississippi’s chances of making the playoff: A home loss to Kentucky put the Rebels on notice, and now a second loss puts them on the brink. The home matchup with Oklahoma on Oct. 26 looks like an elimination game.

Almost everyone who contributed to killing the Pac-12 (4)

Great work, people. Everything is going splendidly.

Yes, life is good at Oregon and Arizona State, and it’s not bad at Colorado. But have you seen the rest of the wreckage?

USC Trojans (5)

They led the exit in 2022, fleeing for the money in the Big Ten. Enjoy lighting cigars with $100 bills, folks, but those sure aren’t victory cigars.

For the third time in four Big Ten games, USC couldn’t hold a lead. The Trojans let the Michigan Wolverines come back Sept. 21, let the Minnesota Golden Gophers come back last week and let the Penn State Nittany Lions come back Saturday. A 20–6 halftime lead dissolved into a 33–30 overtime loss. At 3–3 and 1–3 in the league, the heat is continuing to build on Lincoln Riley. His struggles are the only things warming the bitter hearts of Oklahoma fans.

USC’s chances of making the playoff: All but gone. If the Trojans (3–3) win out to reach 9–3, with victories over Notre Dame and LSU, they could reenter the argument. But even then they could need help in the manner of losses elsewhere.

Washington Huskies (6)

At some point Saturday, as Washington was being pummeled in mid-America by the Iowa Hawkeyes, fans who made the trip had to be looking around and asking themselves the David Byrne question: Well, how did I get here?

Of the four West Coast teams traveling long distance in the Big Ten, the Huskies have been the most pronounced home hero/road zero so far. They have beaten Northwestern and Michigan in Seattle and lost to Rutgers and Iowa away. Against the Hawkeyes, they had season lows in points and yards per play. They also had season highs in points allowed, yards per play allowed and turnovers.

Washington’s chances of making the playoff: The Huskies are 4–3 and going nowhere. With trips still remaining to undefeated Indiana, Penn State and Oregon, they’ll be struggling for bowl eligibility.

Arizona Wildcats (7)

Expected to contend right away in the Big 12, Arizona instead is 1–2 in the league and 1–3 against league members (a loss to Kansas State was considered a non-league game since it was already scheduled before realignment). The Wildcats are coming off a 41–19 beatdown from unexpected power wagon BYU, with quarterback Noah Fifita having thrown five interceptions in consecutive losses to the Cougars and Texas Tech. Star wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan hasn’t scored a touchdown since the season opener.

Arizona’s chances of making the playoff: No.

Utah Utes (8)

In fairness to the Utes, both of their Big 12 losses are to fellow Pac-12 evacuees—Arizona and Arizona State. But no matter how you slice it, the preseason conference favorite has become a mess. Fragile quarterback Cam Rising returned from a three-game absence due to a hand injury only to hurt his leg early against the Sun Devils—he kept playing but had one of the worst games of his career, throwing three interceptions.

Utah’s chances of making the playoff: Two losses might not eliminate the Utes from Big 12 title contention, but they’ve got to get right in a hurry. The schedule offers a couple opportunities for that, with games against TCU and Houston before a November slate that includes unbeaten BYU and Iowa State.

UCLA Bruins (9)

They’re 0–4 in league play and in sole possession of 18th place in the Big Ten, a development pretty much everyone could see coming. (Including Chip Kelly, who bailed for a coordinator job at Ohio State.) Hiring unproven DeShaun Foster has only accelerated the decline. Big Ten teams traveling two or more time zones are now 3–10, and 4–9 against the spread. UCLA has been the home team facilitating two of those three long-distance wins, losing in the Rose Bowl to both Indiana and Minnesota.

UCLA’s chances of making the playoff: Check back in 2026. And don’t get your hopes up then, either.

The Bay Area schools (10) are a combined 1–5 in ACC play. The Stanford Cardinal are 1–2, with a last-second win at Syracuse and home losses to TCU and Virginia Tech. The California Golden Bears are 0–3, although their series of excruciating losses (by a total of eight points) is basically just a continuation of Cal football as it’s often been, regardless of conference affiliation.

Either school’s chances of making the playoff: About the same as UCLA’s. Not this year, not anytime soon, maybe not ever.

Beaver Believers (11)

Oregon State fans had a bad weekend. They lost to Nevada to drop to 4–2, and they had to put up with Oregon having its biggest home win in history to stake a claim to No. 1 in the nation.

Oregon State’s chances of making the playoff: If the Beavers had gone 11–1, with their only loss to the Ducks, maybe they could have mounted a long-shot argument for at-large contention. Nobody is making the playoff with a loss to Nevada on the resume.

Rick Pitino (12)

The greatest chameleon in college sports history showed up in Lexington over the weekend as a born-again Kentucky Wildcats backer, with former player Mark Pope now the men’s basketball coach. But Pitino didn’t stop at simply wearing blue and appearing in Rupp Arena for Big Blue Madness; he also espoused Mark Stoops’s football team. Pitino said he gave $15,000 to Kentucky’s football NIL fund, a naked act of aggression toward his former employer and UK arch rival, Louisville. Alas, Pitino is not getting any bang for his buck—the Wildcats lost to Vanderbilt and are now 1–3 in the SEC, playing a lot like they did when Pitino was the basketball coach from 1989 to ’97.

Kentucky’s chances of making the playoff: Nah.

Each week The Dash projects the 12-team playoff field as if today were Selection Sunday. As always, the rankings are based on what has actually transpired this season, not preseason predictions. The longer teams like BYU, Iowa State, Indiana and Pittsburgh stay undefeated, the more interesting this becomes.

Oregon Ducks (Big Ten champion, automatic bid)
Texas Longhorns (SEC champion, automatic bid)
Miami Hurricanes (ACC champion, automatic bid)
BYU Cougars (Big 12 champion, automatic bid)
Penn State Nittany Lions (at-large selection)
Ohio State Buckeyes (at-large selection)
Georgia Bulldogs (at-large selection)
Iowa State Cyclones (at-large selection)
Indiana Hoosiers (at-large selection)
Pittsburgh Panthers (at-large selection)
Clemson Tigers (at-large selection)
Boise State Broncos (Mountain West champion, automatic bid)

On the bubble: Alabama, Notre Dame, Texas A&M, SMU, Army, Navy, Kansas State, Tennessee.

First-round matchups: Boise State at Penn State; Clemson at Ohio State; Pittsburgh at Georgia; Indiana at Iowa State.

First-round byes: Oregon, Texas, Miami, BYU.

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Ohio

Ohio woman sentenced in $775,000 Medicaid scheme

Published

2 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

COLUMBUS — A Lake County woman was sentenced this morning to jail time and ordered to pay $775,000 in restitution for fraudulently billing Medicaid, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced. “She inflated her earnings through brazen fraud, but her scheme burst wide open when our investigators got the case,” Yost said. “Cheating taxpayers comes with […]

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‘Catastrophic’ Ohio farm fire kills 6,000 hogs and pigs, officials say

Published

14 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

‘Catastrophic’ Ohio farm fire kills 6,000 hogs and pigs, officials say

A wind-swept blaze at an Ohio hog farm complex caused “catastrophic” damage and left thousands of pigs dead, fire officials said, marking another devastating barn inferno contributing to the deaths of millions of animals in recent years.

The massive fire occurred on Wednesday, Feb. 25, at Fine Oak Farms in Union Township, Madison County, located west of Ohio’s capital of Columbus, according to the Central Townships Joint Fire District. Fire crews received a report of a barn fire shortly before 12 p.m. local time.

The incident was later upgraded to a commercial structure fire after Chief Brian Bennington observed a “large column of smoke visible from a distance” and requested additional resources. Multiple local fire departments, along with several other emergency agencies, were called to the scene.

“What our crews encountered upon arrival was a very difficult and heartbreaking incident,” Bennington said in a statement on Feb. 26.

The fire chief described the facility as a large farm complex used for hog production consisting of five large agricultural buildings, including four that housed about 7,500 hogs. When crews arrived at the scene, they found two of the barns engulfed in flames, Bennington said.

Crews were challenged by windy conditions that significantly impacted fire suppression efforts, according to Bennington. Three barns were destroyed in the fire, and about 6,000 hogs and pigs were killed.

Firefighters saved one barn and about 1,500 hogs, the fire chief added. No injuries were reported in the incident.

Bennington highlighted the assistance of the farming community throughout Madison and Clark counties, as multiple farmers responded with water trucks to help with water supply efforts. “Rural Ohio’s agricultural community is tight-knit, and they truly step up when one of their own is in need,” he said.

The incident remains under investigation, and the Ohio State Fire Marshal’s Office will determine the fire’s cause and origin. Bennington said there is no suspicion of arson and no ongoing threat to the public at this time.

‘Rapidly changing fire behavior conditions’

Heavy smoke from the fire could be seen for miles, and Bennington said first-arriving units were met with fire conditions coming from the opposite side of the hog farm complex.

The fire chief noted that the incident required extensive water-shuttle operations due to rural water-supply limitations in the area. Crews attempted to cut the fire off by deploying multiple handlines and using an aerial device, but “faced extremely challenging conditions throughout the incident,” according to Bennington.

Sustained winds of about 20 mph with gusts up to 35 mph accelerated the fire’s spread, Bennington said. The high winds made it “extremely difficult” to contain forward fire progression and created “rapidly changing fire behavior conditions” across the agricultural complex, he added.

After about four to five hours, the fire was contained by fire personnel from four different counties, according to the fire chief.

“Unfortunately, the fire resulted in catastrophic damage to the business,” Bennington said in an earlier statement on Feb. 25. “A significant portion of the agricultural structures were destroyed.”

Latest major fire to impact an Ohio hog farm

The incident at Fine Oak Farms is the latest major fire to cause significant damage to an Ohio hog farm in recent years.

In August 2024, about 1,100 pigs were killed in Versailles, a village about 50 miles northwest of Dayton, Ohio, according to data from the nonprofit Animal Welfare Institute. In March 2022, about 2,000 hogs died in a barn fire at Kenneth Scholl Hog Farm in Brown Township, just west of Columbus.

Before the fire at Fine Oak Farms, the Animal Welfare Institute reported that other barn fires in Ohio this year killed 162 sheep, horses, cows, chickens, and other animals.

Hundreds of thousands of animals killed in barn fires each year

Data from the Animal Welfare Institute shows that hundreds of thousands of animals are killed in barn fires across the country each year. Since 2013, over 9 million farm animals have been killed in barn fires, according to the organization.

As of Feb. 26, the Animal Welfare Institute reported that 118,738 farm animals have died in U.S. barn fires this year, including the incident at Fine Oak Farms. The majority of farm animals killed were chickens in separate incidents in North Carolina and Georgia in January, and another incident in Missouri earlier this month.

“Most fatal barn fires occurred in colder states, particularly the Upper Midwest and the Northeast. New York, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois had the highest number of barn fires, respectively,” according to the organization. “The amount of cold weather a state experienced appeared to be a greater factor in the prevalence of barn fires than the intensity of a state’s animal agriculture production.”

In an updated report on farm animal deaths due to barn fires in 2025, the Animal Welfare Institute said more than 2.53 million farm animals were killed in barn fires from 2022 to 2024. The organization noted that the high death toll was “driven primarily” by fires at large operations that housed several thousand to over 1 million farm animals.

The majority of deaths in these incidents during that period, over 98%, were farmed birds, such as chickens and turkeys, according to the Animal Welfare Institute. But in 2023, a massive fire at a west Texas dairy farm became the single deadliest event involving livestock in the state’s history and the deadliest cattle fire in America in at least a decade.

18,000 head of cattle perished in the fire at the South Fork Dairy farm near Dimmitt, Texas. At the time, Roger Malone, who is the former mayor of Dimmitt, called the incident “mind-boggling.”

“I don’t think it’s ever happened before around here. It’s a real tragedy,” Malone said.

Contributing: Rick Jervis, USA TODAY; Shahid Meighan, Columbus Dispatch

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Ohio’s LaRose pushes back on voter fraud critics, Democrats

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Ohio’s LaRose pushes back on voter fraud critics, Democrats

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose discussed voter fraud and Ohio’s efforts to prevent it during a recent radio appearance.

LaRose appeared on “The Bill Cunningham” radio show, where he defended the state’s efforts to minimize voter fraud. A clip posted on X shows audio of LaRose arguing that policies aimed at preventing voter fraud are necessary even though cases are rare.

Here’s what to know.

Secretary of State Frank LaRose says voter fraud in Ohio is rare, compares prevention efforts to TSA security

In the clip, LaRose says that Democrats claim voter fraud is rare, and should be ignored.

“The left claims that voter fraud is rare, so we should just ignore it,” he said. “Well, airplane hijackings are also rare — we don’t abolish the TSA. The reason why we keep voter fraud rare in states like Ohio because we do these very things that they’re trying to take away from me.”

LaRose announced the inaugural meeting of the new Ohio Election Integrity Commission, which replaces what he called the flawed Ohio Elections Commission, in January 2026. The new committee, he says, will be used in “enforcing Ohio’s election laws, reviewing alleged violations, and ensuring accountability in matters relating to voting.”

In October 2025, LaRose said that he forwarded more than 1,000 cases of voter fraud to the U.S. Department of Justice. The cases involved 1,084 noncitizen individuals who appear to have registered to vote unlawfully in Ohio, and 167 noncitizens who appear to have also cast a ballot in a federal election since 2018.

In February 2026, President Donald Trump said Republicans should “nationalize” elections. He also accused Democrats of bringing migrants into the United States to illegally vote, a claim that is not backed by evidence, USA TODAY reports.

Voter fraud in the U.S. is considered rare nationwide, according to NPR, but there are still debates from both political sides on how frequently it occurs.

What is voter fraud?

Electoral fraud is defined as illegally interfering with the process of an election, according to Ballotpedia. This includes in-person voter fraud, absentee or mail ballots and illegal voter suppression.

Criminal penalties can include fines or imprisonment for up to five years, according to U.S. code. In Ohio, election interference can carry a felony of the fourth degree, according to Ohio Code.

Voter fraud is often a topic of debate among Democrats and Republicans, where organizations such as the conservative Heritage Foundation maintains a database claiming to show nearly 1,500 cases of election fraud since the year 2000.

Meanwhile, research by law professor Justin Leavitt published in 2014 found 31 cases of in-person voter fraud among billions of ballots cast from 2000–2014, according to Ballotpedia.

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