Anyone else notice that OSU and Clemson are quite literally mirror images of one another right now? Perennial playoff contender that are coming off a playoff appearance that ended with an embarrassing loss and lost one of the greatest quarterbacks in school history to the 1st round of the NFL Draft are now struggling to open the season. In spite of losing a ton of talent to the NFL, both programs had some surprising talented players come back for another year, setting expectations high for the season.

Both have historically fielded well-rounded teams but are brutally bad this season on a specific side of the ball (defense for us, offense for them) and are struggling to overcome talent deficiencies that hamstring the team's capabilities, resulting in an out-of-conference loss to a ranked Power 5 opponent in a winnable game. Both teams' 5-star California quarterbacks have not played up to expectations either. Early-season struggles have continued, with subsequent games not inspiring any confidence in that side of the ball (Clemson nearly lost to Georgia Tech, who lost to NIU), leading to calls to fire an assistant coach who was historically successful at that program just a few years prior (Coombs and Tony Elliott, who won the Broyles Award lol).

Am I the only one seeing this?