Consequences of a 6-game Schedule
The college football world, mostly Ohio State fans, are crying and whining over Clemson’s Dabo Swinney’s comments regarding the inclusion of Ohio State in the College Football Playoffs. Although he isn’t the only one, Swinney simply said something to the effect of “OSU doesn’t belong because they have only played 6 games while others have played 11.”
Coach Swinney was not the only one to express those sentiments, but he is the only one buckeye fans care about. It probably didn’t please them when Dabo put the buckeyes at 11th in the Coaches Poll, or when he said that Ohio State was an “easy prep” for the semifinal game. Of course, intelligent football fans (this leaves out 99% of Ohio State fans) knows what he meant. It simply meant he only had to watch and study six-game tapes as opposed to eleven for the buckeyes. All Coach Swinney has to do is say something, ANYTHING, and the buckeye fan base goes wild. Firmly entrenched in the heads of that fanbase.
The B1G has changed a lot of rules when it comes to Ohio State. The quarantine time frame for players testing positive WAS 21 days. Now, it’s 17 days, just in time to play on January 1st. The previous B1G rule was that a team had to play six games in order to play in the B1G Championship Game. They changed it to five. See where this is going?
What’s lost in all this is the fact that Clemson has had five more games to run their offense, tweek their defense, develop chemistry, and simply be able to play 300 more minutes and 20 quarters of football. While the Tigers had 11 full games to develop depth and iron out any issues they may have on both sides of the ball, Ohio State did not, and that is where I think this gives Clemson an advantage over playing someone like Texas A&M or Florida or even Oklahoma.
Can anyone name the backup quarterback for Ohio State? I mean, on their roster, they show seven quarterbacks. How many have even seen a single rep in a game this year besides Justin Fields. None. Even in blowouts, the buckeyes kept Fields in the game. This is a clear sign that Ohio State was simply trying to build up stats for a Heisman run for Fields. In their last game against Northwestern, the buckeyes had 22 players out with “covid issues”. If the B1G stuck to their guns, they would be without those same 22 players come January 1st. They weren’t about to let that happen.
In the meantime, Clemson rolls along after the 1st Notre Dame game, continuing to build depth and we are talking quality depth, and is primed to face the buckeyes. If need be, DJ Uiagalelei is ready to step in and the Tiger offense wouldn’t skip a beat. Chaz Mellusi got in some valuable reps against the Irish and looked good doing it. WRU has withstood the personnel losses of Justyn Ross, Joe Ngata and Frank Ladson by getting solid contributions out of Cornell Powell, Robbie Spector and EJ Williams. Depth. It’s something that takes playing games to develop. Clemson has been able to do that, Ohio State only had six.
Coach Ryan Day can complain and throw expletives all he wants to, but motivation usually lasts about three plays in the game. Running back Troy Sermon had a great game against
Northwestern, 300+ yards. All those yards and they managed 22 whole points against Northwestern. He seems to have caught the “Ryan Day Disease.”
“Dabo weenie can rank us whatever. It’ll just make way more sweeter when he spends all night staring at the back of my jersey running into the endzone. Go Bucks.” — Troy Sermon.
Has a Clemson player ever said something like this about an opposing coach? Dabo weenie? Do you not think Dabo wouldn’t jerk a knot in that player? What did Charlie Bauman say to Woody Hayes as Hayes laid a shot to his head? “I will say this, the big slap on my butt by Jeff Bryant was simultaneous to the, well you know, to the chin (laughing). Neither one did I feel.” Thus, the difference between players on these two teams. Class. Classless.
The Tigers are currently a 7.5 favorite to defeat the buckeyes. Two big questions for Ohio State; the condition of Justin Fields’ thumb and the health of the 22 players that missed the Northwestern game due to Covid-19. Stay tuned, the CSN prediction will be coming soon.
