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Ohio State head trainer Ryan Day speaks steadily about this system’s annual 3 objectives: Beat Michigan, win the Big Ten and convey house the national title. While checking off all 3 packing containers in the similar 12 months would for sure make any Buckeye fan glad, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith just lately made it transparent the 3rd objective on that checklist will have to at all times take most sensible precedence.
“It’s so funny, everybody’s so focused on just one game,” Smith stated throughout an look on Eleven Warriors’ Real Pod Wednesdays podcast of the back-to-back Michigan losses. “We were basically one point away from being in the national championship game, and I think had we got that two points we needed to convert and ultimately played TCU – I feel confident we would have performed well and won a national championship – I’m not so sure about all this chatter.”
This previous December, the Buckeyes led Georgia via as many as 14 issues within the College Football Playoff semifinal ahead of the Bulldogs rallied to take the lead with not up to two mins to play. Ohio State was once with out one of its most sensible playmakers in the second one part after All-American vast receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. suffered a concussion on a play that featured an overturned concentrated on name.
Georgia would move on to defeat TCU conveniently within the CFP National Championship in January, blowing out the Horned Frogs to the song of 65-7 for a 2d immediately title.
Ohio State closing gained the national title within the inaugural 12 months of the CFP in 2014, defeating Oregon. Their closing look within the CFP National Championship got here throughout the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season, once they fell to Alabama.
As for the Ohio State-Michigan contention, the surroundings for “The Game” shifts again to Ann Arbor this November because the Buckeyes search their first win within the sequence since 2019, Day’s first because the Buckeyes trainer. The recreation was once no longer performed in 2020 after COVID-19 problems pressured its cancelation.
With Ohio State as soon as once more anticipated to be within the national title dialog in 2023, Smith stated the time to speak about Michigan will come after the Buckeyes entire the prior 11 video games scheduled ahead of their showdown with the Wolverines.
“I haven’t really talked specifically about Michigan,” Smith stated. “We have a lot of other games before we get to them. So right now, you’re focused more on developing your roster and developing your team … The ‘team up north’ game won’t matter a whole lot if we go over and not do what we’re supposed to do [against Indiana in Week 1]. So we got to take care of business there.”