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Ohio State only lost once in the 2018 football season, and ordinarily that kind of season would make it really difficult for someone to come up with five unpleasant memories from that autumn.
This, clearly, was no ordinary season in Columbus.
The controversy surrounding Urban Meyer’s coaching tenure, which ended with his retirement this month, clouded the entire season for the faithful at Ohio Stadium and for the entire university.
That saga tops my list of 5 least favorite moments from the 2018 season at Ohio State.
Nick Bosa’s injury
He’s still the likely No. 1 overall NFL Draft selection but it was sad for the Buckeyes to lose perhaps their best player so early in the season. The defensive end was hurt in September against TCU and had surgery on a core muscle injury, prematurely ending his junior season. After the surgery Bosa skipped the rest of the season to prepare for the pros — considering his draft stock, it’s hard to blame him. But as good and as deep as Ohio State’s defensive line is, it’s impossible to simply replace a player like Bosa, an All-American, and expect not to have a dropoff. Sure enough, a dropoff was what the Buckeyes defense endured.
The entire Maryland game until OT
Terrapins running back Anthony McFarland ran for 155 yards and two touchdowns against OSU … on his first three carries. It was that kind of day for the Buckeyes, who never led in the entire game until overtime. That kind of game against a very mediocre Maryland team only proved what the College Football Playoff committee thought of OSU: A good team but not good enough to hang with Alabama, Clemson or even a fellow one-loss team like Oklahoma. The OSU defense’s struggles were never so apparent and it’s hard to think of a time when that unit looked this bad. Oh wait, I just remembered…
The debacle at Purdue
The Buckeyes got blown out last season at Iowa in an inexplicable performance. This game was even worse. In fact the 49-20 defeat was OSU’s worst game in Urban Meyer’s seven-year coaching tenure. OSU allowed a season-high 539 yards (3 more than Maryland gained) and a very average Purdue team overwhelmed a flat Scarlet and Gray bunch. This lopsided result single-handedly kept the Buckeyes out of a CFP berth. Had they lost by, say, 3 points — as Oklahoma did in its lone regular-season loss against Texas — then OSU would have at least had a Playoff argument vis-a-vis the Sooners. But we’ll never know because of this dog of a performance in West Lafayette.
The way OSU handled Zach Smith situation
Assistant coach Zach Smith was fired immediately in the summer after domestic abuse allegations against him, from his ex-wife, became public. Smith, the grandson of former Buckeyes coach Earle Bruce, had coached wide receivers and been on Meyer’s staffs for years, going back to Meyer’s tenure at Florida. Smith’s ex-wife, Courtney Smith, was granted a three-year protection order in the wake of her allegations against Smith, and the way Meyer handled the whole thing led to the university’s decision to suspend the head coach. But that led to…
Urban Meyer’s reinstatement
In hindsight it’s easy to ask what exactly Ohio State got out of merely suspending Meyer instead of firing him. Actually we don’t even need hindsight because even at the time OSU’s decision made the school look weak. It became clear that Meyer, at the very least, was negligent in handling the allegations against Smith and flat-out lied at Big Ten Media Days about what was going on with Smith. Even Meyer’s staunchest allies can’t deny that part. OSU coaches have a very checkered history — Woody Hayes punched an opposing player and Tattoogate ended Jim Tressel’s career — so the school should have been more concerned about the perception that it kowtows to successful football coaches above all else. Certainly one member of the Board of Trustees thought so, resigning after the school gave Meyer a slap on the wrist. Ugly stuff all the way around, and let’s hope Ryan Day runs the program better.
Longtime newspaper veteran Jim Tomlin is a writer and editor for saturdaytradition.com and saturdaydownsouth.com.