Ohio has never been at war with New Jersey.
The two states are kindred spirits whose shared DNA extends to the pre-colonial era. Both were originally inhabited by the Lenape tribe, which alone could have justified Rutgers' B1G admission.
New Jersey was claimed by the Dutch and Swedes before the British did their standard takeover thing. Similarly, Ohio was part of New France before The French and Indian War moved it into Britain's wallet. Same DNA, similar adolescence.
Fast-forward a couple hundred years and New Jersey has been consistently charitable to its slightly younger cousin with the only gift that truly matters in life, college football recruiting: Jack Tatum was from Passaic. Bruce Jankowski hails from Fair Lawn. Alonzo Spellman is from Mount Holly. Malcolm Jenkins was a gift from Piscataway.
Last year's Block O, Cody Simon - he's from Jersey City. Oh, there's so much more - Noah Brown found Columbus from Sparta. Jordan Fuller from Old Tappan. Ronnie Hickman is from Wayne. Eli Apple from Voorhees. Quincy Porter played at Bergen Catholic. IGB! Jaylen McLain! Chris Chuganov! CHUGZ!
All of these absolute legends are native Garden Staters with Ohio privileges forever. So no, Ohio has never been at war with New Jersey. There's no static between the two states whatsoe---
a tradition unLike any other. pic.twitter.com/w8cNWuHNnB
— New Jersey Devils (@NJDevils) October 14, 2025
Uhhhhhh. Not nice. More importantly, not true. CBJ leads the all-time series. That's how math works. Albert Einstein did all of his cool science shit in New Jersey. They should know this.
TBDBITL catching a stray from the Blue Jackets dropping a hockey game? This is outrageous nonsense, New Jersey Devils. It may have felt like classic online ownage in the moment, but it is a total misallocation of online trash talk resources.
You don't tread on the OSU Marching Band. No Ohioan or New Jerseyian has those privileges.
But let's be fair, social media accounts are generally run by 21 or 21-year old-adjacent Gen Alpha workplace neophytes and we've collectively decided that the only attention we give people that young is...any guesses? That's right, on every Saturday in fall when they're playing football and singlehandedly determining our mental health condition for the next 10 months.
This slander can be forgiven. A single social media coordinator did not intentionally mean to stir relations between two states which have peacefully coexisted since 1803. From Civil Wars to conference realignment, Ohio and New Jersey have always been in lockste--
back to back pic.twitter.com/0oRvZE70qU
— New York Jets (@nyjets) November 9, 2025
Okay. Listen. You can't even condescendingly call the New York Jets the Cleveland Browns of New York because for those who are unaware, both they and the New York Giants play in New Jersey. "New York" football teams are a Cincinnati's Airport is in Kentucky situation all the way down to jets being involved in both cases.
But yes, once again - unprovoked hostility from New Jersey at Ohio. These debts can be settled on what ancient Lenape tribes referred to as Ohio State Week. Or Rutgers Week. Both, actually. Same DNA.
And yes, Ohio's NFL teams have been spectacularly unspectacular, but it's not like New Jersey's football teams are performing to any enviable standard. No Garden State sport should open its crooked mouths at anyone, let alone at the Buckeye State football program New Jersey's best have been flocking to as refugees for decades.
Somehow, it's Senior Day in Columbus. Here come the Scarlet Knights!. Let's get Situational.
OPENER | THIS MUST BE THE PLACE
Caden Curry, Sonny Styles and his brother Lorenzo Styles Jr. tackle UCLA wide receiver Mikey Matthews. © Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
I cannot remember exactly when Ohio State's special teams began to atrophy in a meaningful and consistently disgusting way. I do remember first calling attention to it after the 2021 season closed with an epic consolation prize in Pasadena at the expense of the Utah Utes.
That was four years into Parker Fleming's tenure at Ohio State, which began as a Quality Control assistant and concluded as Special Teams coordinator. He wasn't fired until two seasons and a contract extension (!) after that Rose Bowl, taking home a cool half-million in severance.
Then-GA James Laurinaitis was prohibited from recruiting away from campus while Fleming was cooking in one of those precious roles, so there was more than just coaching malpractice at play with his retention. This was two years ago, and as recently as the second bye week of 2025, it still did not feel like his stink had been washed off of Ohio State's third unit.
The Buckeyes have punted ONLY four times in three games and HAVE just 18 PUNTS all season, GOOD FOR no.135 out of 136 FBS teams.
But since then, the Buckeyes have gone on - dare we say - a special teams heater.
Three straight games of superior special teams, if you look at comparative execution plus the hidden yards gained or lost whenever those units are on the field. Sure, there was a kick-catch interference penalty that cost them 15 against Penn State. Yes, they lined up in illegal formation on Saturday night against UCLA for a punt.
It's still unclean, but there may be a good reason for the improvement - we'll get to it in a second. First, please enjoy the theatrical cut of Lorenzo Styles Jr. ending a 15-year drought for Buckeyes housing kickoffs, the first of its kind since Jordan Hall's against Michigan.
.@LorenzoStyles_ with the pic.twitter.com/H08j4vgXRW
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) November 16, 2025
What enabled this sudden turnaround? Digging into the numbers reminded me of this joke:
A 98-year old man is at the doctor's office, sitting on the table.
"Doc," his voice cracks, "I can't pee."
The doctor furrows his brow. "You can't pee? How old are you, sir?"
His patient looks at him earnestly. "I'm 98 years old, doc."
"Well!" says the doctor. "That must be it. You've peed enough."
Imagine Ryan Day spending the second bye week pacing his mahogany-shelved study at home, thinking about his comprehensively mediocre special teams unit - an area of his operation which has done nothing but cause sadness and frustration for the better part of the current decade - and stopping abruptly in his tracks. He then says aloud, hey what if we just did less special teams?
Whether that happened or not, it's working. The Buckeyes have only punted four times in the three games since that bye. They've punted 18 times all season - that ranks no.135 out of 136 FBS teams for punting frequency. It's about half of the number of times Michigan has punted in 2025 and eight fewer than Curt Cignetti's Bloomington death machine.
Ohio State's punting hasn't been very good. So hey, maybe they've punted enough.
THE BUCKEYES HAVE CHOSEN TO RETURN JUST FOUR KICKOFFS THIS SEASON. Half of the FBS has returned over 17.
The flip side of this is Matt Patricia's defense has forced 54 punts, or 3x the number sailing toward Ohio State returners than what they're sending off Joe McGuire's foot. The Buckeyes have returned just 16 punts all year. That one Brandon Inniss fumbled in Seattle is the only memorable one.
But punt-safe and fair-catching with Ohio State's efficient offense coming onto the field is a reasonable strategy - as long as it isn't fielded inside the 10-yard line and accompanied by a flag, hashtag Parker Fleming Special. It took UCLA's punter launching one directly into Caden Curry's sternum for this unit to live dangerously on 4th down.
Ohio State's reliable kickoffs have sailed into the endzone 52 out of 71 times this season, and that brings us to the punchline of the second joke in this section, which doesn't have anything to do with old guys peeing. Do you know which team is leading the entire FBS in kickoff return yard average in 2025?
It's your favorite one, which has returned only four kickoffs this season. Styles Jr's house call skewed the return average in a way that only The Law of Small Numbers can explain. Half of the FBS has returned over 17 kickoffs. Ohio State's solution to mediocre special teams is just doing opting out of doing it whenever possible.
This is much funnier than the pee joke. So now you can see how Day might have finally turned his program's special teams' performance around. He's chosen to use them as little as possible. At the same time, he decided to use them more.
INTERMISSION
The Solo
Last year in an attempt to exorcise the demons of Michigan claiming a national title* songs exclusively from 1997 were sacrificed in this space. This strategy worked marvelously, so this year's theme will be Songs From Any Year Except 1997 or 2023.
Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet featured four distinct songs that were played at every Hastings Middle School dance upon its release. The first was You Give Love a Bad Name, which is from the Moped genre. Awesome song, but embarrassing if you're seen enjoying it in public. Nachos have less cheese.
The second was Livin' on a Prayer, a Certified Banger best enjoyed with everyone shouting along to it. If you haven't seen the 54-year old wedding guest Jon Bon Jovi being peer-pressured into singing it with the band video, it's wonderfully wholesome and the trumpet solo absolutely slaps.
The third was Never Say Goodbye from the Awkward Slow-Dance genre. And the fourth was Wanted Dead or Alive, which is from the Every Guy in New Jersey Thinks He's a Cowboy genre, a category founded by Bruce Springsteen in 1978 with Darkness on the Edge of Town.
Wanted Dead or Alive features an electric guitar solo. Let's answer our two questions.
Is the musician in the video actually playing the electric guitar?
You reach a certain age where you start to hear new music and realize it's simply recycled and updated for current audio standards. This is perfectly fine. Songs which worked before can work again, and Bon Jovi decided he liked Bob Seger's Turn the Page so much he made a pastiche of it. Chew up both songs and the burp your ears make tastes the same.
Richie Sambora handles Bon Jovi guitar solos. He dated and/or married every woman teenage boys have had posters of on their walls going back to the mid-sixties. The lesson here is you should have learned to read music, dumbass. VERDICT: Yes, inconclusive.
does this electric guitar solo slap?
No seventh grader ever figured out how to dance to Wanted Dead or Alive. Is it a slow-dance? Nah, that's weird. One of those group hug-circle situations? Not with Never Say Goodbye on the same album; 80s hair band etiquette had strict rules - only one per album. It's a question better left unanswered.
Your only job while listening to Slippery When Wet is to remind yourself it's okay to enjoy the hell out of it. Mopeds are fun. Bangers are timeless. Slow Dances are adorable. Jersey guys are hilarious. You've seen a million faces, and you've rocked, like, no more than six of them. That makes you normal. That makes you good. VERDICT: Slaps.
The Bourbon
There is a bourbon for every situation. Sometimes the spirits and the events overlap, which means that where bourbon is concerned there can be more than one worthy choice.
Penelope Architect. C'est plutôt bien.
Well, we've reached the final home game of the 2025 season. The last time we talked about Penelope, it was ahead of the first home game of the 2020 season.
That one was played in late October, which - let's never do that again. However you choose to remember the abbreviated 2020 season, the fact remains that the Buckeyes beat every team on the schedule that did not fall below the roster contact tracing precautions OR didn't fake an outbreak to avoid playing them as a 30.5-point underdog.
A perfect season, technically. Since then, Penelope has taken off in a good way - doing interesting, innovative and accessible things with American whiskey.
The Architect is a 75/21/4 corn/rye/malted barley mash bill aged no less than four years in French oak staves, not English oak - which means it's not technically bourbon since English oak is part of that equation.
It's not unlike what we discussed last week about tomatoes technically being fruits but still getting vegetable privileges. Architect looks like bourbon, feels like bourbon and is constructed like bourbon.
So they colored outside the lines and got creative. Sweet creamy heat is the simplest way to describe the experience from nose to finish. A bakery with broken air conditioning. The entire catalog is recommended and available. Technically from New Jersey, but an MGP operation.
CLOSER | LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE
Jaxon Smith-Njigba fends off Utah cornerback Micah Bernard as he races to the end zone for a touchdown during the second quarter of the 2022 Rose Bowl. © Joshua A. Bickel / USA TODAY NETWORK/Imagn
Three months ago I went long on Ohio State's acclaimed WR room as part of 11W's season preview package. I argued that the Buckeyes have always been W.R.U. but two wretched factors have prevented this from being widely recognized until Brian Hartline took over the room:
First, (the Buckeyes have) always had the top-end guys to be W.R.U. Refusing to coach Ohio State's offense into the obvious destination for wide receiver greatness has been a choice for the past 40 years.
And second, they always had a Jaxon Smith-Njigba lurking on their roster.
JSN was the metaphor for when an Ohio State difference maker is plucked from participation for unforecasted reasons, usually but not always a receiver. Cris Carter was JSN (agent) before JSN was JSN. Keith Byars (foot) was too.
Joey Galloway (ACL) was JSN before JSN was JSN. Drew Carter (both ACLs). Maurice Clarett (amateurism). Ted Ginn Jr. (the worst TD celebration ever). Terrelle Pryor (amateurism). Marvin Harrison Jr. (uncalled targeting/concussion). And of course, JSN himself.
We've suffered JSN adjacency horrors as well. The 2013 Buckeyes went down the moment Christian Bryant was lost for the season in what should have been garbage time against Wisconsin. Braxton Miller finished his career as a seldom-used receiver.
RYAN DAY treats PLAYER injury status like state secrets, with deep and justified paranoia.
Nick Bosa was lost against TCU before the 2018 conference schedule began. A solid third of the roster wasn't allowed to face Alabama in the 2020 CFP title game due to contact tracing. None of those are JSN situations, where in 2022 the Buckeyes coast to the national title game with him on the field in the offense built around him.
TreVeyon Henderson couldn't stay healthy that season, either - Toledo's current RB1 started the Michigan game that season. In 2023, Emeka Egbuka and Lathan Ransom were shells of themselves and it cost the team on both sides of the ball.
And then last season, Josh Simmons goes out in October and Seth McLaughlin followed him off the field in November - their two best linemen, JSN'd out of the stretch run.
But JSN had another element to his long, invisible goodbye. He got hurt during the Ryan Day era, and it that ordeal which taught us how this regime treats injury status - like state secrets with deep and justified paranoia.
Sometimes, we don't realize how injured a player (Henderson, Ransom) is. Other times, we see them on the sideline (Carnell Tate, Jeremiah Smith) and our memory stores go to JSN. Bosa. Galloway. Byars. The. Worst. Case. Scenario. Once. Again. That's our own problem.
Here's what I know: If Tate and Smith are physically able to play in a situation where Ohio State needs them, there's no conflicting incentive that will keep either of them from playing. If they're able to play against Michigan, they're both playing against Michigan.
And they've both been physically able to play all year, including last week. The only thing Tate and Smith have in common with JSN right now is their ability to take over games and make life absolute hell for whomever the Buckeyes are playing. That's it.
Thanks for getting Situational today. Go Bucks. Beat Rutgers.
