COLUMBUS, Ohio —For Ohio State, making the College Football Playoff might feel like a consolation prize.
That’s assuming there is any way of consoling Ryan Day’s Buckeyes after Saturday’s 13-10 loss to Michigan.
“We’re just going to have lick our wounds and regroup, but I don’t think anything’s hurt more than this,” said Ohio State linebacker Cody Simon, his eyes still damp and red, sniffing back his emotions.
Ohio State and Michigan have played more than 120 times dating back to 1897, and the Wolverines’ victory Saturday in front of 106,005 fans at the Horseshoe can reasonably be called the biggest upset in the history of the series simply known as The Game. Michigan has now won four in a row, none even remotely as shocking as this one, given that the team that accomplished it did so without Jim Harbaugh; without Blake Corum; without J.J. McCarthy; without Connor Stalions.
The Buckeyes were favored by about three touchdowns.
“That’s as disappointing of a football game here in Columbus, Ohio, that we’ve seen,” Jay Richardson, a former Buckeyes player who co-hosts “THE Football Fever,” said to open the local postgame TV show. “I can’t even remember the last time it’s been this bad.”
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If this result had happened in the previous iteration of the College Football Playoff, the four-teamer that was retired after last season in favor of a 12-team bracket, all the talk would have been about whether or not Day would be keeping his job, and we’d have an answer in a few days.
A lot of the postgame talk will still focus on whether or not Day should remain in the job he has held since 2019, but with a caveat: He could also still win a national championship this year.
“I’m not there right now, quite honestly,” Day said when asked about resetting for a possible Playoff run with his $20 million roster, loaded with talented players who will leave the program 0-4 against Michigan. “Still trying to digest everything that just happened, and I got a locker room full of guys who are just devastated.”
As stunned Buckeyes fans filed out of Ohio Stadium, more than three hours of anxiousness on a cold and cloud-free day had been converted to anger and something beyond frustration. Fair to say a lot of them have seen enough of Day.
“Bring back Tressel,” one called out. Jim Tressel was the coach who flipped the rivalry back the Buckeyes’ way in the early 2000s after John Cooper went 2-10-1 in his time as Ohio State coach. Under Tressel and Urban Meyer, Ohio State owned the rivalry as it never had before, winning 14 of 15 before Day added one more in 2019. A generation of Buckeyes fans knew nothing but domination over Michigan. Yes, they have probably grown entitled around here.
Day let that slip away the last three years, but that’s what happens in rivalries. It’s what should happen in Michigan-Ohio State. Neither should own this series. Forget what the recruiting rankings say from 2021 to ’23. Both teams were good. Michigan was better.
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This season, Day’s loaded squad was supposed to restore order for Ohio State against a shell of what Michigan has been. What happened instead conjured eerie memories of Cooper’s worst losses. In 1996, the second-ranked Buckeyes lost at home to No. 21 Michigan 13-9.
Day is now 1-4 against Michigan and 66-6 against everybody else.
“Zero points in the second half,” another fan shouted as Day, head down, silent, walked down the tunnel at Ohio Stadium.
All around Day were distraught, furious and dazed Ohio State players. One screamed expletives at no one in particular.
As if things couldn’t get any worse for the Buckeyes, a postgame fracas — which started with Michigan trying to plant a big Block M flag at midfield and led to punches being thrown between players and pepper spray being deployed by law enforcement officers — could lead to discipline from the Big Ten office that impacts Ohio State’s first Playoff game.
And of course, it gives Michigan more to rub in.
“That’s just bad for the sport, bad for college football, but at the end of the day, they’ve got to learn how to lose, man,” Michigan running back Kalel Mullings said.
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The Wolverines (7-5) are done defending their national championship. After three consecutive appearances in the four-team College Football Playoff, they will conclude this season in some bowl, maybe in Florida, far away from all the pageantry and hype of the new way to crown a champion in this weird and wonderful sport.
As for Ohio State? It will most certainly be part of the first 12-team College Football Playoff (its odds of making the field remain greater than 99 percent in updated projections by The Athletic’s Austin Mock). For those worried the new format would render late-season games meaningless, that it would be no big deal if teams lost to their rivals on the way to making the CFP, well, Day should only be so lucky.
Welcome to the strangest week in the history of one of college football’s most storied programs. The Buckeyes probably have at least one more game to play. Where? When? Against who? To be determined.
Cheer up, guys, right?
“I don’t really know what it looks like, but it … just hurts,” Simon said. “We just got to come together as a team.”
The thing about a 12-team Playoff is, there needs to be 12 teams. And after two straight weeks of contenders losing to unranked teams (Alabama, Ole Miss, Miami) or barely escaping (Georgia), it would be hard to argue against the Buckeyes’ body of work. Ohio State handed No. 4 Penn State and No. 10 Indiana their only losses and played No. 1 Oregon to a one-point loss on the road.
Still, it will be an uneasy week around the Woody Hayes Athletic Center and the surrounding area.
Because college football’s calendar is an illogical, overstuffed mess, this week is also the start of the early signing period. On Wednesday, the Buckeyes will lock up yet another star-studded class, currently ranked No. 3 in the country by 247Sports.
Everything about Ohio State football should be good right now, and yet there is no program in the country more joyless, that has so much but still feels so empty.
(Photo: Ian Johnson / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
