His expression says it all as Curt Cignetti raises the 2025 Big Ten trophy high above the turf at Lucas Oil Field. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Brian Bayless)
The Buckeyes dropped only to No. 2, but they have things to work out on offense before their first playoff game on New Year’s Eve.
By Marcus Hartman for Press Pros
Indianapolis, IN — Ohio State lost to Indiana at Lucas Oil Stadium on Saturday night.
That means instead of going to the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, the second-ranked Buckeyes will play No. 7 Texas A&M or No. 10 Miami (Fla.) in the quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff at the Cotton Bowl in Arlington, Texas.
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(The Aggies host the Hurricanes on Dec. 20 in a first-round game.)
The show must go on for the Scarlet and Gray, but what will the Buckeyes look like when next we see them?
They entered the season with hopes of repeating as national champions, though the truth is on paper they looked less likely to do that than their recent teams that had just won it all. That will happen when 14 players get drafted by NFL teams and both coordinators have to be replaced.
And yet after earning instant respect with a convincing 14-7 win over No. 1 Texas in the season-opener, Ohio State assumed the top spot in the polls and their return to the top started to feel more and more inevitable from week to week.
New stars and stalwarts emerged such as Kayden McDonald, Arvell Reese, Kenyatta Jackson, Bo Jackson, Austin Siereveld and Julian Sayin while Jeremiah Smith, Caleb Downs, Sonny Styles and other holdovers continued to excel or in some cases got better.
More than one national college football observer has observed the Buckeyes are better than they were last season, especially with a defense that is more dynamic both in play with McDonald, Downs, Reese and Styles and scheme under new coordinator Matt Patricia.
The Buckeye defense held its own against a high-powered Indiana offense, limiting the Hoosiers to 13 points. But when their own offense struggled, even that effort fell short.
Ohio State remained No. 1 throughout the fall while suffocating all challengers, but Indiana shattered the Buckeyes’ air of invincibility Saturday night with a 13-10 win in the Big Ten Championship Game.
That means the Buckeyes can’t go undefeated, though that was never the primary goal.
They can still win it all again, but season-long issues with short-yardage and red zone offense cost them dearly against the Hoosiers.
The Buckeyes were 1 for 3 on third-and-4 or less and scored one touchdown in four red zone trips.
Had they gotten field goals out of all three of the others instead of just one, they still probably would have won, but they came up empty when Sayin failed to convert a fourth-and-1 and Jayden Fielding missed a chip shot field goal.
It’s tough to win a game that way, especially when a team has only a handful of explosive plays.
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The Ohio State defense answered the bell against a great Indiana offense, but the OSU scoring unit faltered against a stout Hoosier stop unit.
“We’ve got to make sure that they’re the right plays and that we’re executing them well enough and that we’re practicing them well enough — all the things that come with it,” head coach Ryan Day said after the game. “We spend an inordinate amount of time to try to figure out what is the best scheme that fits what you’re going to see in the game, and then we go from there. We’re all involved with it, and we’ve all got to own it.”
Sonny Styles got some pressure on Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza, but the elusive Mendoza did just enough to keep his squad on a winning path.
The scheme faced plenty of questions in the aftermath of the loss.
That of course is par for the course. Every call is wrong if it doesn’t work, but some complaints can turn out to be true.
In this case, Ohio State continued to lean heavily into heavy personnel, typically having at least two tight ends on the field. It’s been a departure from Day’s early years when the receivers were the backbone of the offense (along with the quarterback), and there have been some ups and downs.
Increased use of three- and even four-tight end sets (including when one might line up at fullback) has yielded mixed results. Such looks have been more valuable for nostalgia than effectiveness, and that was the case Saturday night.
“When it works, it’s good,” Day said. “When it doesn’t, then you want to take it back. That’s how life works.
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“At the end of the day we’ve got to make decisions in real time that we think give our guys the best position to be successful and practice it enough to execute it. And when it doesn’t, then certainly we’ve got to deal with what comes with that. And that’s my responsibility. So at the end of the day, I’ve got to make sure that we’re putting our guys in the right situation to be successful.”
In some cases, being stubborn with new strategies can work out well in the end. The efforts to develop a more physical team paid off a week ago at Michigan, but the Wolverines are not Indiana.
(Yes, really!)
Lorenzo Styles Jr., attempts a pass breakup on Indiana wide receiver Charlie Becker.
The now-top-ranked Hoosiers are on another level than Ohio State’s oldest rival, and therefore the margin for error was much lower Saturday night.
Beyond all that, where are the Buckeyes heads now?
Perhaps that is the biggest question.
Their path back to the National Championship Game, which is scheduled to be played Jan. 19 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Fla., could be perilous as TAMU and The “U” both took their turns looking like title contenders earlier in the season before faltering.
A win on New Year’s Even would send Ohio State to the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Ariz., where they would face Georgia, Mississippi or Tulane.
Ohio State bounced back from a late-season disappointment against Michigan last season to win the College Football Playoff, but that blueprint can only take them so far this time around.
“I think every year is different, every group is different, but yeah there’s going to be a lot of hard conversation here over the next couple of weeks for sure,” Day said.
After suffering his first defeat as a starter, how Julian Sayin responds to adversity will influence how deep these Buckeyes can go.
“When you lose a game, it hurts, it stings. That’s one of the things we’ve talked about all year is, let’s not wait for a loss to have great urgency. Let’s not wait for a setback to motivate us more. Let’s continue to fight every day to make sure that we’re on top of all of that. But the truth is that, with this group, I think that this is going to make us more hungry because this is a competitive group. To walk off that field without a championship is going to hurt. And that’s what we wanted to do. There’s a lot of guys in that locker room that are pissed off right now.”
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