I’ll start off with a thank you as always for a great season.  A year after a national championship, and a lot of uncertainty on defense, I didn’t put high expectations on this year. That quickly turned into a wow this team is really really good. Beating meat chicken was a monkey that had finally been removed from Days back, and so thankful for getting to be able to smack talk their delusional fans again. Then came the loss to Indiana. A great coached team and missed opportunity to win. Okay so riding the high emotions from winning The Game, the hangover left mixed with the news of Heartline moving on makes sense that a championship caliber team could stumble. 
    That leads me to what I witnessed last night.  People can say all they want about RD and his play calling “plunders”. I tell them to eat crow, and think back to a 42-41 loss against Georgia with a missed FG to end the game.  You don’t put up that many points of play calling is an issue. While sometimes yes it’s play calling in certain situations, but not this game. From the start on offense and Defense players were on their heels being reactive to what was happening on the field.  A hungry team (Miami in this game) was on their toes attacking in every phase.  Well to have the first 30 minutes look so atrocious got me thinking about what was going wrong from my experience playing football. While there were some things that looked obvious, the pick 6, 3 sacks, -3 rushing yards, and Miami doubling the time of possession, I started looking at all of these things as a whole.  How could the players and coaches look so unprepared and like a deer in headlights?  Well the culprit imho is the 25 day break between games.  Almost a month off from being in the field ready to destroy the other team. I don’t care how good faith side of the ball is, you can not replicate the speed or physicality of playing in an actual game. You’re not going to hit your teammates like you would an opponent.  You’re not going to move like your being chased by a starving lion. Just not going to happen. It’s why up to this point teams that have had a first round bye are 0-5. It’s said that the biggest improvement you see in a team is between week 1 and week 2. Well this game displayed that. Miami played ~ 12 days ago, their week 1. We were their week 2 game. The 25 day break is like a mini off season so this was week 1 for OSU.  Watching the first half only validated my reasoning. The long break is absolutely ridiculous and to hell with bowl games.  Keep the season moving and take the extra couple days around the holidays.