Did I miss something? Why are there so many parallels being drawn between the 2014 Buckeyes and this year's squad?
Am I the only one that sees very few, if any at all, similarities here?
That '14 team, to me, that was just a different breed of football team. Very young, but man were they hungry... Va. Tech takes them too the woodshed and THAT team REALLY DID look at the guy in the mirror and take ownership of the loss and every single week they got better, and better, and better and that team beat Michigan and when QB1 went down and Cardale came in and took over, history was made.
In '22 we really didn't see that. This team had ALL the hype any team has had over the last handful of years, and just for me basing it off the eye test, really week to week they almost seemed to regress. There are a lot of variables there, fine throw out the NW game with the wind and all that sort of stuff, but by and large I don't think the '22 team was better at the end of the year than it was at the beginning.
As far as injuries, even with losing 2 QBs I'll say the '22 team had it worse, but otherwise, the '14 team had every card possible stacked against it and still overcame. The '22 team knew exactly what it needed to do to get to the promised land and they still came up short.
Sorry, but the 2014 Ohio State Buckeyes would absolutely beat the brakes off the 2022 Ohio State team. Can you imagine Zeke Elliott lining up against that front seven? Michael Thomas against the 2022 Ohio State corners? I think they would smash the 2022 Michigan Wolverines and I think they would beat the 2022 Georgia Bulldogs convincingly.
Hollywood couldn't write a script to demonstrate what it was the 2014 Buckeyes did, that was a team of destiny. To me, very few, if any at all, comparisons between the two.
The 2022 Buckeyes are underdogs because they put themselves in that position by under-achieving, the 2014 Buckeyes were underdogs because no one expected them or even really wanted them to be there, they forced the issue and demanded that fourth spot.
