Cleveland, OH
Has Buckeye buzz been blunted during Ohio State football offseason? Hey, Nathan!
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Most programs should be as lucky as Ohio State football, where consensus top-five expectations constitute being overlooked or underrated.
Some skepticism — relative to other national powers, especially — is reasonable right now. Georgia is the two-time defending national champion. Michigan returns a lot of talent from its two-time defending Big Ten championship team. The Buckeyes still don’t know who will start at multiple key positions.
Yet to at least one of our Buckeye Talk Subtext subscribers, something feels off about OSU’s offseason anticipation.
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Hey, Nathan: “Does the buzz around OSU this year seem higher, lower, or about the same from last year? It seems lower to me, but that may just be me. I find myself less interested in OSU off season than in recent years.” — Chris “not Beanie” Wells from Powell, OH
Hey, BeaNo: Buzz is a tricky word, though I assume in this context you mean frontrunner or national championship favorite status?
In that case, yes, the buzz has dipped, for a few reasons.
• Ohio State keeps losing to Michigan and has ceded the top spot in the Big Ten Conference. The Wolverines are expected to be strong again, which complicates any assumption of OSU making the playoff.
• Last season, Ohio State returned a Heisman Trophy finalist quarterback. As of today, the current Buckeyes do not know which quarterback will open the season against Indiana on Sept. 2. Both Kyle McCord and Devin Brown are well-regarded, but uncertainty and even unfamiliarity can be buzz killers.
• Maybe it’s just me, but it feels like more teams are considered legitimate playoff contenders now than a year ago. Reigning Heisman winner Caleb Williams is back for USC. People think LSU, Florida State, Washington and perhaps Penn State are making moves. That’s on top of the carryover quartet of OSU, Georgia, Michigan and Alabama.
For all of those reasons, the Buckeyes have sort of slunk into the crowd a bit. Now, I’m not saying this OSU team can do what 2019′s squad did. But that team was not picked to win the Big Ten and entered the season with a lot of questions. Then people saw how dynamic Justin Fields was and exactly how advanced the defense was with Chase Young and Jeff Okudah and the buzz quickly built.
In other words, if the defense takes a step forward and the quarterback play looks strong early, the buzz should ramp up pretty quickly.
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