Uncovering The Mystery

“A riddle inside a mystery, wrapped in an enigma…” ~ Winston Churchill

Things that are said behind closed doors are done for precisely that reason – there are things that the random person who is not involved in the situation should have access to, or be told about. It is against that backdrop that I am going to ask the burning question that I believe is not only on my mind, but on the mind of other Ohio State football fans ~

What was said and discussed in the team meeting on December 1st?

“I’m not going to say there was yelling, crying, screaming…Just a bunch of guys looking each other in the eye saying, ‘That wasn’t our best.’. At the end, we were all putting our arms around each other saying, ‘Let’s go do this.’.” ~ Sonny Styles

I bring this topic up, simply because the results on the football field after the loss to “That Team Up North” in THE GAME are impossible to ignore. Ohio State could only muster 10 points versus the Wolverines on November 30th, but the Buckeyes have put up 42 points in their opening College Football Playoff game versus Tennessee on December 21st, then 41 versus Oregon in the Rose Bowl on January 1st. Conversely, the Ohio State defense has clamped down on their opposition, only allowing the Volunteers 17 points, while giving up 21 points to the Ducks.

And here’s another tidbit – Ohio State could have beaten both of those teams even worse than they did. Ohio State was liberally substituting at the end of the Tennessee game, while also playing conservatively in the second half of the Rose Bowl versus Oregon. As Oregon linebacker Bryce Boettcher said after the Rose Bowl, “It’s quite the shock to say the least. It’s going to stick with me for a while…They outschemed, outplayed us in every aspect of the game.”.

Whatever Ryan Day, Chip Kelly, Jim Knowles, etc., have figured out since November 30th is obviously working, and working quite well. It has certainly caught the attention of the college football world, as Ohio State has demonstrated a dominance on the football field in this new era of The College Football Playoff that nobody anticipated.

I believe Coach Day articulated it well when he said, “When things are going good, you’ve got to hug the guys you love the most. And when things aren’t, you’ve got to hug them even harder…I keep saying it, ‘We’re fighting to keep this team together’, because we have a great group of guys together.”

Will the words of the closed door team meeting on December 1st still carry as much meaning when the ball kicks off in AT&T Stadium on January 10th at 7:30pm ET on ESPN? That is another layer to the “riddle inside a mystery, wrapped in an enigma” that Ohio State fans everywhere are anxious to see.