Category: Buckeyes Wire

Ohio State may have lost in Glendale, but 2020 looks awfully bright

Ohio State lost a Fiesta Bowl classic on Saturday night and exits a championship run prematurely. Never fear, next year is looking great.

Ohio State football fans are still reeling from one whale of an entertaining game in the Fiesta Bowl last Saturday. As expected, it was a close-knit affair that could have gone either way, save for a slew of breaks going in the wrong direction.

As good as this Buckeye team was — and I’ll be pushing up daises before I don’t believe it was the best team in 2019 — it sure feels like the season ended prematurely. It was clear Ohio State was the better ball club on the night of December 28, it just made to many key mistakes and had almost every single break go against it. But, that’s part of the game and you have to try and overcome.

Now we look ahead to the 2020 season, and there’s no reason to be more optimistic than a mosquito at a moon-bathing convention. So let’s dive in.

First, the offense. The key piece is returning, and he’s a good one. Quarterback Justin Fields will be back with a year of seasoning, and an offseason to heal up on that gimpy knee. I still wonder if the injury he sustained wasn’t more serious than what was led on, but either way, he should have time to get that right again.

He’ll be protected by an offensive line that somewhat surprisingly has most of itself intact for next year. Gone is the gold-speculator’s find in graduate transfer and left guard Jonah Jackson, but center Josh Myers, left tackle Thayer Munford, and right guard Wyatt Davis are all seemingly headed back to mash defensive lines for another year.

Nicholas Petit-Frere has big-game experience and should be able to take over for the departed Brandon Bowen at right tackle, and a talented yet still developing Enokk Vimahi is the odds on favorite to nail down the vacant left guard spot. That’s a solid and much more proven corps to work with than what the coaching staff thought it had coming into this season.

At the skill positions, wide-receivers Binjimen Victor and K.J. Hill are gone, but it’s still a deep group that will get even deeper with the arrival of the best wide-receiving class in program history — and best in the country. J.K. Dobbins departure will hurt, but Master Teague is the next man up that should shine as the featured back next season.

On defense, the line will again be a very, very good one. Zach Harrison is about to become a star at the end spot. And while the unit loses Chase Young, BB Landers and DaVon Hamilton, guys like Tyreke Smith, Tommy Togiai, Tyler Friday, Javontae Jean-Baptiste and Haskell Garrett are going to keep the level of play high.

The Back seven is probably the biggest concern, but there is reason to believe that OSU can re-load. Linebacker Malik Harrison is gone to graduation, but the team will still have the services of Tuf Borland, Baron Browning, Pete Werner and others.  We’re still waiting to see who takes Jeff Hafley’s spot in developing the secondary, but Amir Reip, Sevyn Banks, Cameron Brown, Josh Proctor and gang will have to step up if all four DBs are indeed gone because of graduation and early departure.

And we can’t forget about special teams. Punter Drue Chrisman and kicker Blake Haubeil both have another year to flip bottles, boom punts, and split the uprights.

So yeah, the loss stings but there’s a lot to like about the team coming back in 2020. It should be another year of a dynamic offense, with some question marks in the back-end of the defense, but there is no reason to believe this team can’t make another run at a Big Ten Championship and spot in next year’s College Football Playoff.

Heck, maybe it’ll get another shot at Clemson.

 

Fiesta Bowl most watched non-New Year’s Day Semifinal of CFP era

ESPN is reporting that the Fiesta Bowl between Ohio State and Clemson was the most watched non-New Year’s Day CFP semifinal to date.

According to the ESPN PR department, the Fiesta Bowl between Ohio State and Clemson was the most watched College Football Playoff semifinal not played on New Year’s Day.

That’s a mouth full, but you know what they mean. No, not that semifinal games should be played on January 1 (sounds too obvious doesn’t it), but that a lot of people were interested in what went down in the desert on Saturday night.

All told, ESPN reports that the game had 21.2 Million viewers. That’s the highest viewership of eight total semifinals played before New Year’s Day, and is a bump of 9 percent over last year’s most watched semifinal.

So, if you were literally tuned into the dramatics and flair happening inside of State Farm Stadium, you were clearly not alone.

Ohio State basketball falls to No. 5 in latest AP Poll

The Ohio State basketball team fell to No. 5 in the latest release of the AP Top 25 College Basketball Poll.

It was a weekend to forget for Ohio State athletics.

First, the football team lost the Fiesta Bowl to Clemson in a truly bizarre and frustrating game that it probably should have won. Then, on Sunday, the Buckeye athletic program doubled down on despair when its men’s basketball team lost a bruising game to West Virginia.

The Buckeye hoops team has some of the most quality wins of any team in the nation to date, but it has now dropped two of its last four games. Twice it was on the doorstep of taking over as college basketball’s No. 1 team, and twice it fell on the way to the waiting room.

Because of that loss on Sunday, Ohio State fell from No. 2 to No. 5 in the latest AP Poll that was released Monday.

Gonzaga stayed at No. 1, followed by Duke (2), Kansas (3), and Oregon (4)  all just ahead of OSU. Baylor (6), Louisville (7), Auburn (8), Memphis (9), and Villanova (10) round out the top ten.

You can get a complete look at the top 25 by clicking on the below.

Colin Cowherd admonishes Ohio State fans for complaining about Fiesta Bowl officiating

Colin Cowhered went on an almost eight minute tirade on Ohio State fans for complaining about the Fiesta Bowl officiating.

He’s back.

Not one to worry about what large fanbases think of him, radio talk show host Colin Cowherd has thrown all kinds of shade at Ohio State fans for their perception and complaining about the officiating in the Fiesta Bowl Saturday night.

In an almost eight-minute tirade, Cowherd criticizes Ohio State fans for feeling the team got robbed by a couple of controversial calls in the College Football Playoff semifinal.

Though Cowherd agrees that the overturn of the fumble return for a touchdown was a so-called “overreach” by the replay booth, he still points to other things that had more of an impact on the outcome. He believes OSU’s two turnovers, field goals in the redzone, and inability to stop Clemson consistently in the second half was more impactful than anything the SEC crew assigned to the game did.

You can listen to Cowherd sound off if you haven’t heard it already by clicking on the below video shared by @TheHerd. But be warned, if you’re an Ohio State fan, it might get your blood boiling.

Ohio State running back J.K. Dobbins declares for NFL Draft

Ohio State running back J.K. Dobbins has made the decision to forego his senior season and enter the NFL Draft.

Ohio State junior running back J.K. Dobbins has announced his intentions to forego his senior season and enter the NFL Draft. He announced his decision through his Twitter account Monday.

Dobbins came to Ohio State in the 2016 recruiting class. As the story goes, he committed without even visiting the campus because he knew it was the place for him. Buckeye fans, players, and coaches are happy he did.

He first made his presence known in the first game of his freshman season, filling in for an injured Mike Weber against Indiana. He announced his talent to the world on national television by rushing for 181 yards. He never looked back.

After a sophomore season that saw Dobbins split carries with Mike Weber, he took off this year more to have arguably the greatest season a running back ever has at Ohio State. His 2,003 on the ground in 2019 will leave him as the program’s all-time single-season rushing leader.

More than that though is the way that Dobbins carried himself in Columbus. He was always gracious in the post game, always quick to credit others above himself, and had a love for Ohio State.

Of course the way that he announced his decision was heartfelt and as classy as can be.

You can read his entire letter to Ohio State and its fans, coaches, and training staff by clicking on the below Tweet from Dobbins himself.

Big Ten Supervisor of Officials says Ohio State fumble return for TD in Fiesta Bowl should have stood

The Big Ten Supervisor of Officials is the latest experts to assert that the Fiesta Bowl fumble return TD should not have been overturned.

Look, we’re not whining or crying about what transpired in the desert on Saturday night (okay, maybe a little), but we are finding more and more well-respected officiating experts come to the defense of what happened with Ohio State over the weekend.

There were a handful of controversial calls over the course of the Fiesta Bowl, but the one everyone continues to talk about more than others is the scoop and score TD when Jeff Okudah dislodged the ball from Clemson receiver Justyn Ross. Safety Jordan Fuller quickly picked it up and ran it in for a go-ahead touchdown and all of Buckeye Nation celebrated, even after watching the slow-motion replay.

But wait.

Somehow, someway, the SEC officiating crew overturned the call and took points off the board.

Since then, Clemson fans have complained about the outcry over the perceived overreach by the replay booth official, but it’s clear Ohio State had fans have a leg to stand on. The latest officiating expert to come out and say the call should have never been overturned is the Big Ten Supervisor of Officials Bill Carollo.

Carollo, when talking to CBS Sports couldn’t believe the call was overturned.

“I haven’t talked to anybody who thought it was an incomplete pass,” Carollo told CBS. “To reverse it, it has to be really obvious.”

Again it cannot be stressed enough that Ohio State could have won this thing by taking care of missed opportunities, but you can now add another well-respected officiating expert who has over 30 years of experience with officiating to the growing number of folks that are perplexed on what happened with this SEC crew.

Ohio State football lands 3-star tight end for 2021 class

The Ohio State football team got a verbal commitment Monday from 3-star 2021 tight end Sam Hunt out of Colorado.

Despite Ohio State’s trip out West not ending how it hoped, it did gain a recruit out of it. 

Three-star recruit Sam Hart, rated as the No. 14 overall tight end in the class of 2021 according to 247Sports, , gave his verbal commitment to Ohio State on Monday via Twitter. 

Hart, who plays at Cherokee Trail High School in Aurora, Colorado, also had scholarship offers from Notre Dame, Colorado, Iowa and Arkansas among other schools. 

He is now the seventh commit for the Buckeyes’ class of 2021, joining quarterback Kyle McCord, receivers Marvin Harrison Jr. and Jayden Ballard, offensive tackle Ben Christman, defensive end Jack Sawyer and linebacker Reid Carrico.

Ohio State’s looking to build on the momentum of this year, and adding what they believe is a tight end with a high upside is a continuation of that effort.

Kirk Herbstreit gives high praise to Ohio State RB J.K. Dobbins

Ohio State running back J.K. Dobbins had an amazing game in the Fiesta Bowl and did so on a bum ankle. Kirk Herbstreit took notice.

If we didn’t know already, the stats now confirm it. Ohio State running back J.K. Dobbins will go down as one of the best ball carriers to ever put on the scarlet and gray. After the 174 yards on the ground in the Fiesta Bowl, Dobbins is now the first OSU back to rush for over 2,000 yards in a season.

That of course also means he is the all-time single-season rushing leader for the program — one that has had more than its fair share of explosive and dynamic backs.

But we saw something else from Dobbins on the field Saturday night. He tore up the Clemson defense early on the ground, but he then sustained an injury to his ankle that limited his effectiveness some what through the second-half. He had a noticeable limp, and came on-and-off the field attempting to get his ankle taped up enough to finish things out.

And he did. He was a warrior and a beast. He gave all he had for his Ohio State teammates and coaches in what could have been his swan song for his career in Columbus. He in fact had some huge plays to put OSU in position to win on the last drive.

It didn’t go unnoticed by one prominent former Ohio State player either. Former Buckeye quarterback and lead ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit took note and made the time to praise Dobbins in a Tweet directed at the OSU back.

In responding to a thank you tweet from Dobbins to Buckeye Nation, Herbstreit recognized the greatness of what No. 2 had done.

“You are an unbelievably gifted player w/ a rare & special approach to the game. JK your humility-hardwork-& passion are so appreciated. Thank YOU for YOU & wearing the scarlet & gray w/ such class. Your performance & GUTS last night will always be remembered- Love ya buddy”

Herbstreit is often (unjustly) criticized for not wearing his Ohio State allegiances on his sleeve at all times, but there’s no doubt he is a proud alum, and this only re-confirms that.

Dobbins took note of the nod his way as well and passed the OSU love right back to Herbie.

We love Ohio State bromances, and this is one that we absolutely agree with. Both are, or will be great OSU ambassadors now and into the future.

 

Ohio State football signees Paris Johnson and Kourt Williams finalists for All-American Bowl Man of the Year Award

Ohio State signees Paris Johnson Jr, and Kourt Williams are two of six finalists for the All-American Bowl’s Man of the Year.

If you’ve followed Ohio State football over the last few years, there has been a definitive and cultural shift in the program. It still goes after the best of the best talent, but there’s no doubt that character is a big, big part of recruiting a kid to Columbus these days. Not that it wasn’t before, and not that other programs don’t focus on it, but I am continually pleased and proud of the way Buckeye players conduct themselves in interviews and both on and off the field.

And here’s another nod to that.

According to a release by the All-American Bowl, Ohio State football signees Paris Johnson Jr., and Kourt Williams have both been named as part of six finalists for the bowl’s Man of the Year Award.

It could be history repeating itself. Last season, Ohio State 2019 signee and now freshman wide-receiver Garrett Wilson was a finalist and ultimately won the award. Could another future OSU player do it again?

According to the All-American Bowl’s website, “Nominees epitomize a high standard of excellence in community service and athletic distinction.” There’s no bout the Ohio State program is set to usher in some more great player, but perhaps more importantly, some great kids.

The award is set to be handed out during the 2020 All-American Bowl Awards Show on Friday, January 3rd in San Antonio, Texas.

We will of course inform you if either Williams or Johnson takes home the honor.

Ohio State football assistant Mike Yurcich named Texas offensive coordinator

It’s official. Ohio State assistant coach Mike Yurcich has been named the new offensive coordinator at Texas.

Success leads to opportunity.

Ohio State just finished up a highly successful 2019 campaign — albeit prematurely it feels — and the assistant coaching staff is now being poached. By now you know the news of co-defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach Jeff Hafley being named the new head coach at Boston College. Now too, the Texas Longhorns have made it official and have named Buckeyes’ passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach Mike Yurcich its new offensive coordinator.

Credible rumors of such a move began circulating last week but Ohio State was deep in the throws of a national championship quest. Now that the journey is over, Texas has made the move.

Yurcich will be working for former Ohio State offensive coordinator turned Texas head coach Tom Herman.

“I talked with a number of coaches as we tried to find the best fit at offensive coordinator, and Mike is a guy who really stood out,” Herman said. “I’ve admired his work for many years, he’s very highly regarded and respected in the coaching world, and in talking at length with him, I was extremely impressed with what he’ll bring to our staff. He knows our conference well from his time at Oklahoma State and, including the run he had with Ohio State this year, has played a big part in some of the nation’s best offenses for the past several years. All of that said, what impresses me most about him is how he works with and develops players and the creative ways he utilizes all of his weapons on offense.”

Herman is entering his fourth season at Texas, one in which he’ll likely need to make a leap in consistency and tangible results on the field. The Longhorns have yet to contend for the Big Twelve title and unperformed some pretty lofty expectations this year. Herman was brought in to rejuvenate the program and bring it back to national prominence, but that has yet to happen.

Yurchich released the following statement in response to the news.

“When looking at offensive coordinator positions, Texas is a no-brainer career move,” Yurcich said. “I’m excited to work with coach Herman and the entire staff. Having recruited the state of Texas, and having coordinated in the Big 12, I’m excited and proud to represent UT Football as its next offensive coordinator.”

The move is a risky one for Yurcich, but one that results in a promotion. At Ohio State he worked with Justin Fields to help him become a Heisman finalist and Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year. How much was him and how much was Ryan Day is not known, but now the Ohio State head coach must now replace two assistants that stayed in Columbus for just one season.

Something tells me he’ll be able to attract a couple of pretty good candidates to replace what’s been lost.