THE SITUATIONAL: Eleven Angry Men

If you understand what at stake and what to look for, it's possible to gaze directly into a program's soul on any given Saturday. For example, Ohio State's head coach clearly has a Michigan problem.

It's evident by the choices he's made during those meetings, most notably the last three. No Buckeye has gotten the ball more in that span than...go ahead, come up with a guess...that's right, current Toledo running back Chip Trayanum making his tailback debut in 2022.

In 2023, TreVeyon Henderson got more handoffs directly into a stacked line than the total amount of receptions by Ohio State receivers, because leaning on a unit no defense has enough cornerbacks to contain can't take precedence over proving a meaningless point about toughness.

It's the same flareup of cognitive herpes which extended into the 2024 game strategy - a coaching mental block, comrades; not a personnel issue. And while always thinking about Michigan is some Cold War era-shit I don't have the discipline to cure myself of, what I saw last Saturday as a 55.5-point underdog lost by 70 was invigorating.

Ohio State CONTINUED TO PLAY purposeful football when it could have done what most TEAMS do WHEN A GAME IS IN HAND - WASTE everyone's goddamn time UNTIL THE CLOCK HITS ZERO.

This was a total departure from anything I've seen in these types of games going back to the days of Urban Meyer's fetish for QB keepers, Jim Tressel using 3rd down to center a 4th down field goal, John Cooper destroying his cuticles when something didn't go perfectly right - and Earle Bruce creating his own Beethoven's 5th Symphony reeeeeemix with lyrics the whole stadium and opposing sideline knew in advance (run run pass puuuuuunt, run run pass puuuuuunt).

Evil Ryan Day, like no Ohio State coach in my lucid lifetime, demonstrated on Saturday what the money Grambling State accepted was explicitly for. His team played and staff coached 60 minutes with a level of joyous urgency that in traditional paycheck games - if it appears at all - begins to wane somewhere between 28-3 and 42-7.

Seventy-three players got in on just offense and defense. Special teams? I have no idea - if my eyes weren't deceiving me, there were more walk-ons screaming down the field on kickoffs late in the 4th quarter than scholarship players. And the sideline was going nuts over it, with a healthy spread already covered.

This departure from conventional cupcake puckering confused some people:

Wjy the hell didnt he kneel the ball? Had to put up 70 on the last play against a school like Grambling? wtf was that?

— Mr_mitchellLee (@Mr_MitchellLee) September 7, 2025

The job was $1M for 60 minutes of unconstrained humiliation. Not 59. Definitely not 35.

Lincoln Kienholz didn't just come in to just hand off and bleed the clock, he threw seven passes while extending the lead from 42 to 63 points. Tavien St. Clair came in and may have gotten more passing attempts if not for a dropped 3rd down conversion from a 5th string tight end.

Ohio State played four full quarters of purposeful football when it could have done what most coaches do, which is waste everyone's goddamn time when a game is out of reach. Its defense never stopped attacking and the whole program was into it.

And when the only people left in the stadium were the ones waiting for a post-game performance from the two best marching bands in America, players like Ryan Rudzkinski, Alex DelSignore, Isaiah Kema, Jackson Courville, Zach Hayes, Bukari Miles Jr. and Diante Griffin were all actively participating in an Ohio State football game at the same time - because packing it in and puckering is a choice, regardless of what's at stake.

There isn't a speck of entitlement in Day's program at present. Gaze into a program's soul enough times and the revelation is that a talent-equated opponent isn't necessary to see fear and loathing from a coaching staff. It can seep out during the escape from a game already in hand.

It shows up as wasting time to get out of the building with a win instead of seasoning the fourth and fifth guys off the bench. This is how killers coach. Nothing leaked on Saturday. That's what can be learned by a 55.5-point underdog losing by 70.

And now, another non-noon home game? Is this heaven? No. It's Ohio. Let's get Situational.

OPENER | THESE MEMORIES DO NOT BELONG TO US

Tavien St. Clair takes a snap against Grambling State on Sept. 6, 2025. Ohio State won 70-0. ©Adam Cairns / Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Three weeks into the season - Week Zero deserves our respect - and we've already got intriguing datapoints to peruse, burgeoning Cinderellas to adulate and cackling villains to eviscerate. Let's do a list, it's been awhile:

1. Texas is now 1-2 in 2025, having finally won a game. Unbeaten vs. 135/136 FBS teams.

2. Sherrone Moore, who will sit out the next two games as part of Michigan's Coach Suspended for Cheating annual tradition is 10-6 in his head coaching career. The only road game he's ever won as a head coach was the day you'll never forget.

Every confirmation bias you have about the Stalions era's impact continues to pulse, and the aforementioned mental block in Columbus is what's keeping Moore from a .500 record.

3. The program with the two most impressive wins thus far is South Florida, which destroyed then-no.25 Boise State in Week One and followed it up by taking down then-no.13 Florida in Gainesville on Saturday.

This weekend the Bulls visit no.5 Miami. USF head coach Alex Golesh is a Dublin Scioto and Ohio State grad, who served as a student manager on Tressel's 2004 and 2005 teams. Speaking of USF, a lot of people got very mad at AP voter Haley Sawyer for telling on herself:

.@haleymsawyers response to CFB fans criticizing her AP Ballot:

I dont want to go too much into my process or logic Its really fun but it doesnt probably matter in the end.

Sawyer moved Florida up two spots after losing to USF on Saturday. https://t.co/b0ATToij8x pic.twitter.com/d9wsQpLA0F

— #18 USFBULLS69 (@usfbulls69) September 9, 2025

Let's zag here. Sawyer simply revealed how the AP poll has always worked for many of those who have had ballots. Voting becomes more of a chore more than an important task or privilege. These polls serve the sport, juice programs and give us more stuff to bat around between Saturdays.

Beat reporters have a ton of information to synthesize every weekend just for the team they're covering (Sawyer covers Southern Cal). It's hard to pay attention to literally everything else in college football responsibly, which is part of the reason **lowers voice** coaches' poll ballots are usually filled out and submitted by junior staffers, not head coaches. Don't worry reader, Santa is still real.

Sawyer is an easy mark for reasons I'll avoid getting into here - but she's not unique. Back in 2011, a certain high-profile analyst spent the month of December gushing over how Ohio State had never seen anything like Arkansas' burly offensive line. Surely the Buckeyes would succumb to SEC superiority in the Sugar Bowl.

Anyway, Ohio State won and that guy - who, let's assume he watches the Buckeyes weekly - dropped them three places in his AP ballot for winning a game he insisted they would lose. He's doing just fine. Sawyer will be fine too. Sometimes you need to take your medicine.

If you think Dylan Riola's Pat Mahomes cosplay is creepy, you should see Mylan Graham pretending to be Garrett Wilson. © Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

4. Mylan Graham (above) had a team-high 34 snaps on Saturday. Kienholz and St. Clair (above above) played more football against Grambling than Julian Sayin did. Jelani Thurman led tight ends in participation. This is a program that understands abs are made in the kitchen while still honoring the importance of leg day and core work.

5. The Buckeyes had 10 touchdowns on just 11 offensive possessions Saturday. The scoring math you're looking for is nine (TD drives) plus one (goal-line interception) plus one (punt) minus one (fumble-six).

If 11 possessions seems light for a game that Grambling - to its credit, was actively attempting to win and not just eating clock to reduce Ohio State possessions - the statistics and number crunchers back you up. And this wasn't even an FBS-FBS matchup.

FBS vs FBS games have averaged 23.6 total game possessions through Week 2, 0.8 fewer possessions per game than last season through Week 2, and 0.7 fewer than 2024's season-long average of 24.3 poss/game. 2025 is on pace for a new all-time low: bcftoys.com/possessions

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— Brian Fremeau (@bcfremeau.bsky.social) September 9, 2025 at 11:59 AM

Fewer possessions doesn't necessarily mean less football. It does mean a reduction in the number of times Ohio State's mystifying special teams unit takes the field. So, advantage Buckeyes? We'll take it. That unit has been adrift since the pandemic.

6. College football's Irish curse continues unabated and underreported in 2025. We can't keep allowing the Ireland tourism bureau to keep getting away with this.

Kansas State, whom we last saw sending future national champion Will Howard packing in favor of its current quarterback room, now has its season on the ropes. If you think the curse has any intent of slowing down or showing mercy, Bill Bellichick's North Carolina Tarheels face TCU in Dublin next year. Girlfriend is getting her first passport.

Pitt returns to Ireland to play Wisconsin in 2027 in a matchup that poses a real threat to Ireland running out of beer for the first time since the early 1400s. And while not Irish, Michigan just moved its 2026 home opener against WMU to Germany in preparation for a postseason ban the NCAA was too chickenshit to impose so here's to that Irish curse spreading Pan Europa. Sláinte.

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.

Most rock bands from the 1960s failed to survive the disco and punk-dominated 1970s, transforming into nice little time capsules you can enjoy on the classic rock stream of your choosing. One exception is the Stones, who will survive the rapture and whatever happens after that.

They dipped a little during the 1970s but still produced a disco-scented album which has survived far longer than the genre itself. Some Girls contains 10 songs all carrying the highest degree of karaoke difficulty imaginable. Miss You contains a harmonica solo. Let's answer our two questions.

Is the musician in the video actually playing the harmonica?

First, Billy Preston gets a writing credit for this one - if you've watched the eight-hour Beatles documentary on Disney+, you get plenty of him mashing the keyboards on what ended up being Let it Be. As for the harmonica, that's James Whiting, aka Sugar Blue.

He's missing completely from the initial cut of the song (provided above) and was added later to spruce up the album's first radio release. VERDICT: Immaterial.

does this harmonica solo slap?

A Rolling Stones song needed a boost, so a harmonica solo by a guy going by Sugar Blue was embedded into it - and that version ended up becoming one of Rolling Stone magazine's top 500 songs ever recorded. Doesn't slap? What's the matter with you boy? 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.

The Ohio University was established in 1804, one year after Ohio statehood. The school opened for students four years later, which gave OU a 62-year head start on the ag school whose football team you hold so dear in 2025.

The Kentucky Owl Confiscated. Cheers, Elliott Ness.

The The is a point of contention for OU enthusiasts. When the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College was established in Columbus, the trustees concluded its government name was confusing - they were right - and scrambled a meeting to formally change it.

What they landed on is now how NFL players introduce themselves on Monday Night Football.

Emphasizing The a solid half-century plus after the original The set up shop in Athens is irritating to many Bobcats. Ohio State stole it. Larceny. Hey, that's a bourbon, but we're going to fancy it up in honor of keeping this weekend's paycheck in-state.

Kentucky Owl Confiscated pays homage to the lost barrels of bourbon which were seized by the Prohibition Unit of the IRS and Treasury Departments while the Volstead Act was in effect. Imagine returning from The Great War in Europe and finding booze was now illegal. Oof. Different column.

Because it's a KO product, the is mash bill is kept mysterious. Sampling Confiscated, it's definitely not wheated or corn-forward, so we'll spitball 51%ish base plus an uneven split of rye and barley.

What you get is a very light, floral and fruity juice - like a pastry in a continental breakfast that is surprisingly not as bland as you expected. Like all KOs, it comes down to if you're willing to pay three numbers for a category which now has so many quality and accessible two-number offerings.

Confiscated is really well-crafted, and value bourbons have their place. A gentle splurge that doesn't come with any regrets - just like scheduling in-state siblings for a Saturday night.

CLOSER | ILLUMINATION NIGHT

Kayden McDonald tackles Texas' CJ Baxter during the game at Ohio Stadium on Aug. 30. Ohio State won 14-7. © Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

If you're a veteran of Ohio Stadium events and have attended either of the first two games this season, you can't be anything but pleasantly surprised by what feels like a rejuvenated atmosphere. Fewer energy-sapping corporate sponsor on-field presentations helps. But the most notable upgrade is the sound.

The last audio investment was in 2012, Urban Meyer's first season in Columbus. That's when the Horseshoe's loudness was enhanced by - this is weird - the world's first installation of Meyer Sound, no relation.

This season, TBDBITL is mic'd up and there are temporary speaker additions to amplify them on the field. As a result, the band has never been louder. The videoboard as it is today also debuted in August of 2012. It is ripe for replacement. Maybe soon.

Either way, Saturday night - two straight non-noon home games (!) - it will shine brighter.

Speaking of shining, the Buckeyes will have to contend with - incoming hot take - the best and most well-rounded opposing quarterback the new and improved stadium atmosphere will host this season. Timmy, tell the readers about Ohio's Parker Navarro:

Navarro possesses the most important advantage of college quarterbacks post-2020: He's an adult, 23 years old. Look up any of the recent QB Heisman winners and you'll see that while their styles of play vary, they're all old guys. Navarro is almost four years older than Sayin.

As for other guys Ohio State will have to contend with - there's Minnesota's first-year starter Drake Lindsey, our old friend Drew Allar, our other old friend Nico Iamaleava and Rutgers' Athan Kaliakmanis, whom Navarro outplayed in Week One. Grambling's C'zavian Teasett played his tail off on Saturday but, yeah. You saw.

SITUATIONAL ARCHIVE The Situational Whiskey Cellar

Arch Manning will be just fine, but he's already submitted his effort against the Buckeyes and what they see from Navarro should be significantly more challenging. Do not tread lightly.

Thanks for getting Situational today. Go Bucks. Beat Ohio.