Here's a scenario: Ohio State needs a critical 3rd down stop late in a game.
The tension hits you right in the stomach as ambient crowd noise starts rising in anticipation. But then, Davison Igbinosun, Sonny Styles and Caleb Downs - three playmakers, two captains - all come off the field (!) and are replaced with Beau Atkinson, Eric Mensah and Zion Grady.
Three backup defensive linemen. A senior, a sophomore and a freshman. Ohhh, Matt Patricia wants to go heavy here, you rationalize to yourself. He must see something from the film based on what they're showing.
But then you notice Kayden McDonald, Ohio State's best defensive lineman isn't on the field with them. All those linemen in the game, but no Big Mac? Is this really the personnel package that gives the Buckeyes the best chance to make a stop?
Thoughts are now multiplying and colliding with each other in your head as the crowd gets even louder. Could IGB, Arvell and Downs all be gimpy? Are they on a pitch count, as Ryan Day is fond of saying of players operating at some number significantly lower than 100 percent?
The only football program in the PLAYOFF equipped to stop Smith, Tate, Innis and Jackson all on the field at the same time is the one which holds its practices in Columbus, Ohio.
Or maybe this is clever scheme to goad the offense into burning a time out? Are the Buckeyes saving the most obvious, Best Version of Themselves personnel grouping for a future circumstance similar to this one? Are Ohio State's coaches sure about this?
Casual football observers may not even notice that 1, 2 and 8 aren't on the field, since they only see eleven warriors when they watch Buckeye football. But you - handsome, hyper-intelligent ball-knower you - you're freaking out at the guys your team is choosing to exclude for this big moment.
You can't make sense of it. Ohio State's defense is at its best when the Thorpe winner, its most disruptive and veteran cover corner and Block O are all on the field together. This is crazy, why are the Buckeyes rolling with these guys right now?
Now, flip this 3rd Down scenario from defense to offense. It happened in Indianapolis.
Biggest play of the game and they called a play for TE4 lmao
— Tim Shoemaker (@TimShoemaker) December 7, 2025
Four TEs and zero WRs. But wait, this didn't just happen on one 3rd down. It happened twice!
Ohio State got 0 points on both of these possessions. pic.twitter.com/KnH4Ci1RXC
— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) December 7, 2025
Eight TEs and zero WRs (if you're squinting at that first photo, it's Jelani Thurman out wide).
Former 11W beat writer Tim Shoemaker saw it as quickly as our current guys did. As quickly as the rest of our staff and the entire OSU beat noticed. As quickly as you did, handsome. Ohio State actually did that, on purpose. Twice, on separate 3rd downs with the endzone right there.
The Buckeyes took captain Brandon Inniss, all-world receiver Carnell Tate and all-galaxy playmaker Jeremiah Smith off the field and substituted them with three backup tight ends. Senior Bennett Christian, junior Thurman and freshman Nate Roberts. They did this on purpose in the climax of the offense's final drive.
Will Kacmarek was already on the field, giving the offense four tight ends for that snap. Ohio State's best tight end - starter Max Klare, who by himself has 15 more receptions in 2025 than the rest of his position group combined - was on the sideline along with Inniss, Tate and Smith for this critical play. Which was a passing play.
In video game parlance, this is Playing on Hard Mode. It had to be a vibes-based personnel decision, because this definitely wasn't an evidence-based one. Against Michigan and Indiana, the Buckeyes rolled with three or more TEs inside the 10-yard line a dozen (!) times.
THE BUCKEYES' biggest advantage are THEIR STARTING WIDE RECEIVERS, the envy of every COLLEGE program AND A FEW PROFESSIONAL ONES TOO.
The stat line on those 12 plays: 0/4 passing and eight carries for two total yards, which comes out to six inches per play in 13 and 14 personnel - for a team that has a plethora of NFL playmaking talent available.
If there were letter grades lower than F, then that is how you could objectively evaluate the Ohio State offense's absolutely bizarre overindulgence in its TE room during critical moments. This coaching staff is full of football nerds - if they saw any other team with their personnel doing this, they'd laugh at them. So, the question becomes who wants this?
If you're invested in Ohio State's offense gaining more than six inches, converting 3rd downs, moving the chains or scoring points in consequential football games - the answer is...probably not you? If so, show yourself. Explain why benching superstars for backup TEs is a good idea in simple terms the rest of us meatheads can understand.
But hey, we're homers. Let's check in with impartial alumni from the University of Michigan:
When it comes to OSUs short yardage and RZ gameplan, put yourself in the mindset of the IU defense.
— Jake Butt (@Jbooty88) December 7, 2025
Whenever you take either Jeremiah Smith and/ or Carnell Tate off the field, you take massive stress off of Indiana. In the biggest moments, there has to be more of a priority to
Before Jake Butt became your favorite football analyst, he was a former B1G TE of the Year and the Mackey Award winner. He also has a Michigan academic degree. He is, like you, a ball-knower.
That said, Taking Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate off the field helps the Indiana defense more than the Ohio State offense is not some advanced research only TV people know. You don't need a randomized controlled metanalysis of football data conducted by universities with over $10 billion in endowments to figure this out.
This is supreme Captain Obvious stuff, angina-producing self-inflicted rabbit-punches directly to the crotch. It's figureoutable even for dim peasants who make up new words while they're emotionally typing blog posts on a borrowed laptop.
But Butt provided the first answer to our who wants this question, and it's Whomever the Buckeyes Happen to be Playing. They want to see Ohio State in 13p and 14p with the possession and game on the line.
But there's got to be more than that, because opponents don't call the Buckeyes' plays.
Think back prior to the first dozen outings of the 2025 season, largely against dogshit opponents who were perfectly suitable, low-risk recipients for the Buckeyes packing game film with anything they wanted. Keep going - take your memory all the way back to before that 2024 CFP run gave us all a glorious case of euphoriamnesia of what had previously been pissing us off in big games.
This staff had a history of marrow-deep stubborn tendencies it can't quit, from former DC Jim Knowles recklessly throwing caution to the wind to the current head coach Marty McFlying game plans into the back of a manure truck because he could not stop himself from proving that his team was tough...by abandoning Ohio State's roster advantages and making things easier for opponents.
Fast-forward back to now, and our excuse-making coming out of Indianapolis revolves around Indiana game prep being disrupted by two unplanned elements that directly affected the offense: Chris Henry's extended recruitment and Brian Hartline giving notice that he was leaving during the week. But there are holes in that reasoning.
Most notably, the Buckeyes' offense had already shown its fetish for these multiple tight end sets all year and especially in Ann Arbor, which was chalked up to the snowy elements that afternoon. Press play on the video below of the team leaving the field after beating Michigan.
Toward the end (1:14 mark) you'll see and hear Ohio State Tight Ends Coach Keenan Bailey shouting about 14 personnel, a grouping which involves four tight ends and no WRs on the field. This is what the Buckeyes would roll with late in both the 3rd and 4th quarters one week later with the B1G title on the line:
Absolute scenes in the tunnel pic.twitter.com/RKRM4ztEzX
— Spencer Holbrook (@SpencerHolbrook) November 29, 2025
That should shore up our answer to who wants this: Ohio State's opponents and Ohio State's tight ends. They both love to see 13 and 14 personnel. All of those future 1st round picks at other pass-catching positions simply need to share the wealth with the other position groups, if you ask them.
If you need a reminder of how spoiled Ohio State fans are in 2025, think about what worries you the most heading into the Buckeyes' national title defense as the no.2 seed in what was widely believed to be a rebuilding year after losing 14 players to the NFL draft. What are you unsure about?
Your biggest worry is likely the offensive line, which had a lousy night in Indy; it happens. Did you stop to think that maybe the rickety OL is why they play so many tight ends - yes, but only 1.5 of those TEs are reliably good blockers and the best one (Kacmarek) had a disastrous night in Indy.
And that doesn't justify all of the 13 and 14p we've had to watch gain 6 inches per play over the past two games. So the OL is the number one concern. What's number two? Ohio State's deeply unserious special teams? Sure. An uncontroversial choice; it has lost far more big games than it has won.
Third? For me, it's the Buckeyes choosing to die on the We Told You So hill running abundant TE packages in the fruitless pursuit of proving themselves right at the expense of winning a game the surest way.
The only football program in the tournament equipped to stop Smith, Tate, Innis and Bo Jackson all on the field at the same time is the one which holds its practices in Columbus, Ohio. It's the program that's always in the national championship conversation - and far more often than not, comes up painfully short for reasons that seem incomprehensible in hindsight.
The only point the Buckeyes should be obsessed with proving is that they're capable of repeating as national champions. Playing vanity games among position groups only helps the rest of the field.
Their shortcomings have taken many different forms: Giving too much rope to an abysmal special teams coordinator who produced multiple seasons of failing performance before finally being exited.
Allowing no.77 to continue getting reps on the right side of the line despite his performance. Giving a kicker who cannot stop missing critical kicks from any distance in consequential games the opportunity to continue doing that until his eligibility is exhausted.
Exploiting your program's weaknesses is an emotional and destructive choice. Stretch into the boundary will work one of these days, damn it! Day's Buckeyes have made mistakes, because mistakes are a reality of human life. What makes these mistakes different is their unnecessary extension - almost trying repeatedly to prove that they weren't mistakes, actually - at the expense of winning games.
If the Buckeyes' surest way to winning a critical game happened to be running wing-T buck sweeps, they should do that. If four verts is impossible to stop, then roll with four verts. If the wildcat, wishbone, flexbone, any bone is what defenses are unable to solve, then Ohio State should do that.
Its biggest advantage are its starting WRs, the envy of every college program and a few professional ones, too. The current TEs are better than theirs have been historically - this is a program that over-used an injured Cade Stover very recently out of necessity.
At a macro level, Bailey's unit is no more of an advantage in the Buckeyes' championship quest than its long snapper is. It's fine. Don't overuse it. Not like this. Not now. You don't need anymore data.
The only bias Ohio State's coaches and players are supposed to have should be toward the team winning games, not the snap counts of their respective units. Bailey's room is a nice upgrade to what the Buckeyes are accustomed to, and his players have piled up 71 receptions for the year as a result of the work he's put in.
ohio staTE
— Keenan Bailey (@CoachKee) February 5, 2024
Coming Soon. https://t.co/WaRWK8ilAv
That's 41 more catches for ohio staTE than the room had back in 2018, a season where Dwayne Haskins photoshopped the school and B1G record books with his arm. So this is a phenomenal season for Ohio State tight ends in that context. But the sensible way to overpowering and defeating opponents is decidedly not with 13 and 14 personnel packages.
So that presents the defending national champions with a reminder from both Indianapolis and prior to the 2024 CFP run. It has an abundant history of getting cute, stubborn, getting wrapped around the axle trying to prove meaningless points - and paying terrible consequences for it.
The only point it should be obsessed with proving is going back-to-back. Playing vanity games among position groups only helps the rest of the field along that journey.
Allowing the stars to win critical moments instead of forcing them to become bystanders is the surest way to giving everyone - including the TE room - another ring. Choosing to do anything else is a reckless distraction.
