Picture this.

Ryan Day is standing atop the Lucas Oil Stadium stage with an ear-to-ear grin. The confetti falls as Justin Fields gives a “how do you like me now” look while hoisting the B1G Championship MVP trophy. Ohio State players are rocking the B1G Champion hats and holding up that B1G sign that always makes its its way into the arms of some third-string left guard.

On stage, Joel Klatt is interviewing Day and talking about all the things he learned as a first-year head coach and what a conference title means to him. The subject of the Playoff comes up, but it’s somewhat lost in the scene as Ohio State players hold up 3 fingers to symbolize “3-peat.”

Meanwhile, 13 other B1G teams hang their collective heads in dismay and wonder when this is ever going to change. That is, watching Ohio State celebrate in Indianapolis. While Day talks about his success in Year 1, the rest of the conference gets a gut-wrenching reminder that 2019 was supposed to be the time to catch the Buckeyes in their first year without Urban Meyer. Instead, it turns into a deflating, “when is it gonna be our turn” reality.

Now let’s bring it back to present day. Ohio State has not claimed the 2019 B1G Championship yet, though when the unofficial media poll from Cleveland.com comes out around B1G Media Days next month, there’s a good chance that the Buckeyes will be favored to complete the 3-peat.

That’d be a worst-case scenario for the rest of the B1G.

Credit: Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports

Now obviously if the Buckeyes went on to claim another national championship, the B1G’s Playoff woes would take a trip to the back burner. Granted, there would still be the “Ohio State and everyone else” narrative nationally.

But for now, let’s just focus on the single accomplishment of Ohio State winning the B1G without any sort of Playoff impact.

If the Buckeyes win another B1G title in the first year of the Day era, it would be reminiscent of the start of the Meyer era at Ohio State. The big difference was obviously that the Buckeyes were ineligible for the postseason during Meyer’s first season in Columbus, but a 12-0 regular season basically said to the rest of the B1G “we’re coming.”

If Day runs through the B1G en route to a conference title, there would be a feeling that Ohio State isn’t taking its foot off the gas just because it lost the coach who dominated the B1G unlike any coach in the conference’s long history. I feel like because the Iowa and Purdue losses were so bad and the Buckeyes were held out of the B1G Championship before that, we haven’t put that all in context yet.

During Meyer’s time in Columbus, Ohio State in the regular season:

  • Went 55-4 vs. the B1G
  • Never lost multiple conference games in a year
  • Went 18-2 against Michigan, Michigan State and Penn State
  • Was a pair of 3-point losses from playing in 6 straight conference title games

Do we realize that Meyer against the B1G was better than Nick Saban against the SEC?

(That’s even true if you take out that 2007 season and just go from Year 2 on with Saban in Tuscaloosa, where he posted a .888 winning percentage vs. the SEC from 2008-18.)

Now, Meyer is gone. The door is open for the rest of the conference. At least it should be.

Even the most optimistic view of Day probably doesn’t have that kind of intra-conference dominance. If we’re talking about Day’s accomplishments like that 7 years from now, Ohio State will have bored the rest of the B1G out of competing for a conference title. The national narrative that the B1G is “Ohio State and everyone else” will have more legitimacy than ever.

Obviously the team that this pertains most to is Michigan, who is going to hear about the 7 straight losses to Ohio State more times than it can count. As sick of a feeling as it had to be to watch Meyer dominate the favored Wolverines and ultimately repeat as B1G champions last year, can you imagine if Michigan lost that game in Ann Arbor this year? That’s more than a gut punch. That’s a machete to the gut.

Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports

But this isn’t just about Michigan getting over the hump. This is about the rest of the conference taking advantage of the fact that the path to a B1G Championship doesn’t go through one of the great coaches in the history of the sport. For all of Meyer’s flaws, that cannot be denied.

In a way, this should be like when LeBron James finally left the Eastern Conference after making 8 consecutive trips to the NBA Finals. For the last 6 years, every B1G Champion was either Ohio State or the team who beat Ohio State. The conference title went through Columbus (not literally I guess but you get what I’m saying).

I thought that when Ohio State went through its TattooGate scandal and dealt with the recruiting limitations early in the 2010s, Michigan State was the program who really capitalized the most out of anyone in the B1G. From 2010-15, Mark Dantonio went 37-9 in conference play with 3 B1G titles. In 5 of those 6 seasons, he lost 1 or fewer conference games, including the 2015 season when it all came together and MSU earned a Playoff berth.

Is Dantonio ready to pounce on another opportunity to take the lead? Or will it be someone like James Franklin or Paul Chryst, both of whom have had their moments but haven’t put together a stretch quite like what Dantonio had. Take a straw poll and the most popular answers to that question might actually be Michigan and Nebraska.

Maybe this is all just wasted thought. There’s a favorable chance that Day, who inherited a much better situation than Meyer back in 2012, will keep the train rolling. Ohio State hopes and believes that Day will be to Meyer what Lincoln Riley was to Bob Stoops at Oklahoma. That’ll be easier said than done, especially in a division that talented.

I don’t know what’s in store for the post-Meyer era in the B1G. I’m not sure if any 2019 team will give the B1G a chance to score a Playoff point for the first time since 2014, much less win a national title.

All I know is that if the Buckeyes are dancing in Indianapolis on the first Saturday of December yet again, stomachs will be churning across B1G country.