Skip to content

Ad Disclosure

College Football

Ohio State doesn’t care about this, but there are 2 big picture things riding on the Fiesta Bowl

Connor O'Gara

By Connor O'Gara

Published:

Nobody needs to tell Ohio State what’s at stake in the Fiesta Bowl.

It’s pretty simple. An undefeated season is on the line, a national championship berth is up for grabs and the Buckeyes’ second national title in 6 years hangs in the balance. Duh.

But there are 2 big picture things that zero people associated with Ohio State (players, coaches, fans, etc.) care about that are absolutely on the line on Saturday night.

The first one is obvious. It’s been 5 years since Ohio State won the national title, yes, but it’s also been 5 years since a B1G team scored a point in the Playoff. Here’s that Playoff points breakdown by conference post-2014:

  • SEC — 326
  • ACC — 223
  • Big 12 — 99
  • Pac-12 — 7
  • B1G/Every Group of 5 team — 0

Yeah, that’s a bad look. Obviously.

The fact that the B1G has been shut out twice in that timeframe is arguably worse than the Pac-12, which only had 1 team in the Playoff during that stretch, but at least Washington didn’t get shut out. The B1G cannot claim to be the best conference in America as long as that stat exists.

It’s the “yeah, but” whenever someone praises the B1G for having, like, 5 teams ranked in the top 15. The conference’s grace period after Ohio State’s 2014 title has long since passed.

Imagining a world in which this 2019 OSU team gets shut out — after it just put together one of the most dominant regular seasons ever — seems impossible. If that were to happen, shut it down. I’ll start to wonder if the B1G is ever going to score another Playoff point.

But I highly, highly doubt that it’ll happen. Get the tweet ready for after Ohio State gets on the board.

“And those are the B1G’s first Playoff points in 5 years.”

Dibs, that tweet, by the way.

It’s low-hanging fruit. Oh, and if Ohio State wins, get ready for the SEC crowd to make the joke about a B1G team finally winning a Playoff game.

Speaking of that, if you asked the average college football fan who they want to win this game, I bet the majority of them would actually say that they’re pulling for the Buckeyes. Why? Part of it might be that they’re annoyed with Dabo Swinney constantly complaining about the lack of respect for poor, old Clemson (there’s definitely something to that).

There’s another thing at stake. It’s not a role that Ohio State plays often, if ever. Well, check that.

Ohio State played this role back in 2014 to a certain extent. When the Buckeyes beat Alabama, public opinion favored the non-dynasty team. The Cardale Jones storyline was fun, new and most importantly, it pleased the “Bama fatigue” crowd.

Now, the Buckeyes have a chance to please the “Clemson fatigue” crowd. It’s real. Go to 3 national championship games in 4 years and you’ll get plenty of haters. There’s certainly a portion of college football fans who are of the “anybody but Clemson” approach this postseason. There certainly was an “anybody but Bama” approach throughout the Playoff era.

Dynasties are celebrated, but we get bored of seeing the same thing over and over again. Had there been yet another Clemson-Alabama national championship, the entire narrative would’ve been about the need for the Playoff to expand and why college football is becoming too elitist.

That can’t happen. Imagine if we saw a national title game without Alabama AND Clemson. What would that even look like? Well, it would look like 2014.

Remember that?

For college football as a whole, I think that matters. If the people signing and cashing checks — the NCAA — had any say in the matter, they’d be the first to admit that Ohio State-LSU in the national championship is the much better sell. Of course it is. Joe Burrow against his old team after the year he’s had? That’s the type of game that everyone tunes into, regardless of affiliation.

The roles would then flip for Ohio State as it relates to the court of public opinion. LSU has felt like America’s team this year. They’re the ones with the unique Heisman winner, the coach with the entertaining personality and the hungry fanbase. Getting over the Alabama hurdle surely only made LSU more likable.

Again, none of this will be of any importance to Ohio State. The Buckeyes have much bigger fish to fry than that.

There’s the whole “stopping a quarterback who is undefeated as a starter” thing. There’s also the whole “scoring points against the top defense in America” thing. And who could forget the whole “beating a team riding a 28-game winning streak” thing.

Ask Ohio State players and coaches about one of those things and you’ll get a much better answer than if you ask “how much pressure do you feel to represent the B1G and to make college football fans more excited for the national championship?” Goodness, that’d be an awful question. I’d feel bad if any player/coach actually had to answer that.

That’s for us to discuss. Lord knows with over 2 weeks in between the semifinal games and the national championship, we’re going to discuss the angles plenty.

And if Ohio State is part of that conversation, well, they’ll have earned that opportunity by blocking out the outside noise like this column.

Connor O'Gara

Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Tradition. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.