I've seen a lot of bemoaning on this forum over the last few weeks, to the point where I'm going to take a break from it until next season.

But before I do, can we take a step back and acknowledge the fact that OSU remains elite? They are not the best team in the country, I think it's fair to argue they're at best 4th based on losing to Michigan, but what we saw yesterday was the best offense in the country. OSU may have lost but they earned their right to be considered up there with the Georgia's and Alabama's of the world once again on any given year.

Don't get me wrong, OSU needs to fix their defense and start winning championships again to be truly among the most elite, but that offense we all saw yesterday will give them a chance to beat any team in the country on any given day. They were a FG (see: the college football equivalent of a coin flip, as evidenced by UGA's kicker missing two on the day) away from doing so.

None of Knowles' defenses were elite before his 3rd or 4th year, those of us (myself included) expecting to see an elite defense one year after the garbage fire that was the '21 defense were expecting too much, even if Knowles himself gave us those expectations. They were still stastically better on the year than '21, but they need more time to bake.

So I'm going to end with this: if you didn't watch yesterday's game and feel happy for a team that showed up and fought when they could have easily packed things up, given up on Day and Stroud the way most of the fanbase did, and gotten run over by the best team in the country (the way everyone else has), then I really think you should reconsider your fandom and go join the Bama or Georgia bandwagons where you'll be happier.

I know many of you, especially younger fans have gotten spoiled by the Tressell and Meyer years, even Day's first couple of years where playoff appearances seemed a matter of certainty, but OSU is a program that scraps and fights. They rarely win every game, in fact sometimes haven't on the way to winning a championship. Alabama's run is unheard of in CFB, if you're expecting OSU to win a national title every year, or even more than once a decade or so, you don't know OSU's history. There'a nothing wrong with wanting them to win championships, but find a way to enjoy teams that play their hearts out but don't always reach their potential. That's how life works, and more importantly that's how football works...for everyone that isn't named Nick Saban.