Everything Happens For A Reason

IRVING, Texas – For decades the goal of Big Ten teams was to play in the Rose Bowl and see if a national championship would be awarded from the traditional January 1^st game between the B1G and the Pac-10/12.

Those has have fallen by the wayside, as has the Pac-12, as Ohio State has already played and won the Rose Bowl but still has potentially two more games remaining, starting with the Cotton Bowl on Friday evening against the Texas Longhorns.

Everything happens for a reason.

The Buckeyes have played in the Rose Bowl more than any other major bowl with 17 appearances. Checking the rest of the “New Years Six” games, the Buckeyes have been to more Fiesta Bowls than any other games with nine trips followed up by the Sugar (six), Cotton (three), and Peach (one).

The Buckeyes have not been to a bowl game that has not been part of the New Years Six since the 2011 season when Ohio State was assigned to the Gator Bowl, a loss to the Florida Gators that dropped the Buckeyes to a 6-7 record.

Of course, the Buckeyes did not play in the 2012 bowl season, a year where Ohio State went undefeated in the first year of Urban Meyer on the sidelines, and we know what was missed that year, but more on that later.

But that is in the past, a past that nobody wants to talk about right now, not with the Buckeyes sitting as a betting favorite to win the 2024 National Championship, the first edition of the 12-team College Football Playoff.

The Buckeyes have had history at AT&T Stadium, home of the Cotton Bowl. At the high end of the spectrum was the 2014 National Championship win. The low point very well may have been the loss to Missouri last season in one of the odder postseason appearances of the Buckeyes.

The game not being in the CFP, the portal and injuries doomed the Buckeyes and fans were shellshocked when the game finally ended. Even with the adversity, it always felt as if Ohio State would finally wake up and put it away.

Everything happens for a reason.

What happens if Ohio State wins the game? Does Ryan Day give up the play calling and bring in Chip Kelly? Do players like Jack Sawyer, Cody Simon, JT Tuimoloau and others come back for one more run?

Am I writing this story on a plane to Dallas for the College Football Playoffs?

There are several examples of the “butterfly effect” in terms of Ohio State football through the last generation or two.

Do we see Jim Tressel on the Ohio State sidelines if John Cooper had more success against Michigan or bowl opponents? Do we see Urban Meyer coming back to the state of Ohio without the program experiencing some rough waters prior to his arrival?

It is easy to speculate, because if John Cooper has more success, do some of his best teams get over the hump and win national championships, not forcing a coaching change? If Ohio State does not run aground with Tressel at the wheel, are there more championships in Ohio State’s future with the Senator at the helm?

Even with Meyer, what happens if he doesn’t get suspended and ultimately part ways with Ohio State? The recruiting was still there for Meyer.

After Ohio State lost to Michigan a few weeks ago, I heard more than a few fans say that the only rescuer of Ohio State was Meyer.

How things change after a couple of dominating wins.

Defenses were catching up to the Ohio State offense and people running the Ohio State offense to the precision of JT Barrett are not readily available in each recruiting class.

The point is, Ohio State always seems to rebound and rebound well.

Rebuild? Reload? Buckeye Nation has taken great pride of how Ohio State only reloads, but we don’t talk about how it reloads when that is the necessary path.

The payoff is not always immediate. Ohio State was slipping at the end of the Cooper tenure and won a national championship just two years into the Tressel era. Ohio State had started to slip again, posting a losing record for the first time in what felt like an eternity. It once again just took a couple of years under Meyer to hoist the hardware.

Oh what could have happened if the Buckeyes only opted out in 2011 and were bowl eligible in 2012.

It hasn’t always been a smooth journey under Ryan Day, despite winning __ games since assuming the role of head coach of the Buckeyes.

“Ryan Day’s teams are soft” or “Ryan Day was born on third base” or “Ryan Day can’t win the big game” have all been spoken, by friend and foe of the program for several years now.

I am not here to tell you to give anyone a pass for their record against Michigan. I was not born into the Ohio State/Michigan rivalry, I didn’t find it until junior high school and didn’t live it until I first stepped foot on the Ohio State campus more years ago than I care to share.

Would a path of beating Tennessee, Oregon, Texas and either Notre Dame or Penn State count as a big win(s)?

Social media has used the phrase “Minor setback for a major comeback” whenever a player gets injured and cryptically wants to get something on the record. High school kids don’t care about their HIPAA rights by self-reporting.

This Ohio State team over the past several years has gone through a host of minor setbacks (and again, I am not trying to minimize the Michigan game, really). And for those with selective memory, let me just mention Michigan State, Iowa, Purdue all happening under Meyer’s tenure.

At the end of the day, Ohio State is still winning games, landing major recruits like Jeremiah Smith, portal transfers like Caleb Downs and remaining in the bluest of bluebloods.

Just a few weeks ago, there were plenty of fans who were ready to punt on this team, playoffs or not. “Ohio State isn’t going to win anything,” was said by even some of the more rational fans. “Let’s just turn the page to 2025 and start fresh with someone else holding the whistle” or something to that gist was also thrown about.

Now, just a couple of days from playing for a spot in the championship game, many fans have come around. There are a few that will never come around, you just can’t please everyone all the time, or something like that.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, is going to say that Michigan attempting to plant its flag on the 50-yard-line was a good thing, but maybe it was the wake-up call that this team needed, once and for all.

Urban Meyer used terms like “Fight” for team mottos, maybe there was a little too much “tough love” and not enough “toughness”. That is not trying to diminish anything that players are coaches were able to accomplish.

We had a chance to see a little glimpse of what a fully torqued Ohio State team would look like against Georgia in the 2022 Peach Bowl.

Sure, Ohio State didn’t come out with the win.

Was it targeting? (Yes).

Were the final couple of offensive plays a departure from what was working for Ohio State through the rest of the game? (Yes).

Would Ohio State have won the national championship if it beat UGA on the walk off field goal? (Absolutely yes).

I bring this full circle with the butterfly effect that I talked about earlier. What if Ohio State wins that game? Yes, recruiting may have even been better and Ohio State wins as many or more games in that timeline than has happened in this one.

But does Ohio State make the changes that it needed to after 2022? 2023? 2024?

At some point you must cash in your capital and win the darn thing. But Ohio State has been a dynasty without hardware for quite a few years.

Would you trade in 2022 for 2024 and beyond?

I am not sure that I have answer for that one, but I do know one thing.

This team got the wakeup call that it needed. The short game is winning the next two games and having everyone address you as national champions.

The longer game and the one that I will be most interested in is how does Ohio State maintain this sense of urgency in 2025 and beyond?

The problem with catching lightning in a bottle is that it is difficult to do it again.

As a first-time head coach, Ryan Day has been learning each step of the way. This is a lesson that he cannot forget moving forward or the talk of the hot seat will ramp up all over again when a portion of the fanbase sees a different energy.

The problem with success is that it creates very real expectations and there are no higher expectations than the ones in Columbus.

Everything happens for a reason.

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