Well, that sure was fast.
Eagerness, anticipation and unrealistic expectations littered the airwaves, Internet message boards and newspaper clippings in the days following Ohio State's 42-20 stomping of Oregon Jan. 12 at AT&T Stadium to cap a dream season and become the first team to hoist the College Football Playoff Trophy.
Urban Meyer, Ezekiel Elliott, Cardale Jones, Tyvis Powell, Darron Lee and many others gleaned with pride and sheer joy as they passed the trophy among one another and sifted through the confetti signifying the school's eighth college football national title.
Next season couldn't get here fast enough for Buckeye fans everywhere.
Now, it's half over — the regular season, anyway.
With Ohio State's 49-28 dispatching of Maryland Saturday at Ohio Stadium, the Buckeyes completed their sixth game of 2015. Just six remain before post-season play begins in December, and Halloween lurks on the horizon fewer than three weeks away.
Where does Meyer's club stand? What do we know about it? What's next? Let's take a look.
Unbeaten, Top-Ranked, But No Longer Unanimous
Polls are meaningless until early November when the College Football Playoff rankings commence, but Ohio State set a record before games even began when it was voted the first-ever unanimous No. 1 team in the AP Poll's history.
The Buckeyes captured all 61 first-place votes from a panel of voters in August, but have since seen their stranglehold on the top spot loosen mightily as autumn rolled around. Sunday, Ohio State set a record for weeks at the No. 1 spot (102 times), but held onto it by a slim 21-point margin. The Buckeyes received 27 first-place votes, its lowest total of the season. Underwhelming offensive performances in September outside of the season opener at Virginia Tech in addition to an escape at Indiana Oct. 3 caught the ire of voters, but make no mistake about it: The Buckeyes still hold a formidable grip on their No. 1 ranking in both the AP and Coaches Polls.
"It was a good win. As a matter of fact, it was a great win," Meyer said Saturday afternoon. "We're going to enjoy that one and get back to work next week."
A Work In Progress
Ohio State boasts the longest winning streak in the country — 19 games — after defeating Maryland and helping push Terrapin coach Randy Edsall out the door in College Park. Meyer's never lost a Big Ten regular season game at Ohio State, ripping off 26 straight victories in now his fourth season. The man is an astounding 44-3 in Columbus, yet there is plenty of work to be done with the team many thought was too talented to be truly challenged until the weather turned cold.
The Buckeyes struggled to put away Northern Illinois at home and left Indiana with more questions than answers on offense, but still hold respectable positions in most vital national statistic categories:
- 27th in scoring offense, tallying 36.8 points per game;
- 21st in scoring defense, allowing 17.3 points per game;
- 26th in total offense, racking up an average of 460 yards per game; and
- 19th in total defense, yielding 300.2 yards per game.
Those numbers are good for first, sixth, first and fifth among 14 Big Ten teams, depicting both a conference with some of the nation's top defenses and a team with room to improve.
Meyer, Tim Beck and Ed Warinner unleashed a different version of the two-quarterback system we saw at the beginning of the season against Maryland Saturday, using J.T. Barrett primarily as the red zone general and Cardale Jones elsewhere until the game was in hand. It allowed the offense to look the best it has since beating Virginia Tech Labor Day Night in Blacksburg, Virginia, a conclusion that could also be drawn based on playing a weaker opponent (the Terrapins rank at or near the bottom of the Big Ten in most defensive categories).
"A lot of guys were involved offensively," Meyer said. "You throw the ball for 300 yards, you get some guys involved. You're balanced."
The Buckeyes picked up 31 first downs and finished with 499 yards of total offense Saturday. Five different players scored touchdowns. The team did not commit a turnover. The ball was spread around. It was a step forward.
"It's not easy," Meyer said of keeping everyone involved offensively. "We talk about those 50-year-old men sitting in front of grease boards, and you've got guys that deserve to touch the ball, and we're doing the best we can."
Defensive Woes Against Running Quarterbacks
As the offense slipped and slid its way at times against Hawai'i, Northern Illinois, Western Michigan and Indiana, the Buckeye defense is largely the reason check marks kept getting put in the win column.
Against some struggling offenses, the Buckeyes held the Rainbow Warriors and Huskies under 200 total yards and wreaked havoc. Then, in the team's first two conference games against Indiana and Maryland, quarterbacks Zander Diamont and Perry Hills torched the unit for a combined 268 rushing yards and three touchdowns.
Diamont broke a 79-yard score and Hills ripped off a 75-yarder before getting brought down inside Ohio State's 5 on Saturday, two big hits that came as a result of missed tackles and poor angles by Buckeye defenders.
At one point this season, it looked like Ohio State's defense was going to be its calling card. Now, it's got plenty of tape showing mistakes that need quickly amended.
What Now?
Ohio State sits in prime position once again to win the Big Ten East Division and earn a trip to the conference's championship game for the third consecutive year. However, the easy part of the schedule is largely behind it, and two juggernauts await in the final two games of the regular season.
Michigan State stepped past Rutgers Saturday night, 31-24, to remain unbeaten. The Spartans dropped three spots in the AP Poll to No. 7, once being as high as No. 2. The Spartans have dealt with a rash of injuries on both sides of the ball in 2015, but continue to win.
Mark Dantonio's club visits No. 12 Michigan Saturday at 3:30 p.m. in the first heavyweight Big Ten East battle of the season. Jim Harbaugh's Wolverines look as good as anyone in the country right now, shutting out three consecutive opponents — including previously unbeaten Northwestern Saturday — to shoot up the rankings.
Ohio State hosts Michigan State Nov. 21 and visits Ann Arbor Nov. 28. Both games are sure to massively figure into the Big Ten landscape, provided the Buckeyes can defeat Penn State, Rutgers, Minnesota and Illinois in the next month.
Half the regular season is over, but there's still plenty of football to be played before the College Football Playoff field takes shape. Buckle up.
Midseason Awards
Offensive MVP: Running back Ezekiel Elliott. Where would the Buckeyes be without Elliott? His 835 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns are good for fourth and a tie for third in the country, and Ohio State needed every single bit of both. Touchdown runs of 55, 65 and 75 yards at Indiana were the difference against the Hoosiers, and Elliott's eclipsed the 100-yard mark on the ground in 11 consecutive games.
Defensive MVP: Linebacker Darron Lee and defensive end Tyquan Lewis. It's hard to pick one between these two guys. Lewis leads the Buckeyes in tackles for loss (9.0) and sacks (5.5), breaking out in his sophomore season and reaping the benefits of there being so much attention toward All-American Joey Bosa. Lee's 41-yard interception return against Northern Illinois saved Ohio State against the Huskies and he also has 5.0 tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks.
Best Play: Braxton Miller's spin cycle in Virginia Tech. The play helped re-introduce the two-time Big Ten Player of the Year to the college football world after he missed 2014 with a shoulder injury and was an early favorite for play of the year. Miller struggled in the immediate games after, but tallied 90 total yards and a touchdown Saturday against Maryland.
Most Surprising: Ohio State's offensive struggles. The Buckeyes found something with a new red zone package that includes J.T. Barrett at quarterback, but this team's wealth of talent was thought to lead to record-setting numbers this season. There's still plenty of time to figure it out, and the team's overall offensive numbers aren't horrible, but taking care of the ball is essential to improvement moving forward.
Best Coaching Move: Meyer's insertion of Barrett in the red zone. It might be just a quick fix against a bad team, but the offense did look better in the red zone Saturday against Maryland. The yo-yoing at quarterback continued for Ohio State into the first month of the 2015 season, but Meyer's decision to stick with Jones and also use Barrett would be tough to deal with for opposing defenses — as long as the two quarterbacks are able to handle it mentally. Meyer's spoken often about his 2006 Florida team, when he used Tim Tebow and Chris Leak in similar fashion. That was a "very different" situation, Meyer said — is Ohio State 2015 not?
