THE SITUATIONAL: Only if You're Lucky

A lot of people are making a big deal about it, saying things like wow that's five points per game mostly because 25/5 is one of those math problems almost everyone can math without using a calculator, or worse, placing undue stress on our power grid by asking AI.

Do you remember how many points Ohio State gave up through its first five games last season? It was 31. That's 6.2 points per game, another easy math problem. The Buckeyes allowed 32 in their sixth outing, which ended poorly. They gave up 51 points through their first five back in 2023. That's 10.2 per game, or double what this year's has allowed. Still really good.

I didn't ask Grok about Ohio State's defense. If you use Grok, I'm begging you to stop asking AI bots answers to questions the most distracted 3rd grade version of you could have solved with a no.2 pencil and just a hint of gumption. Your aging brain needs the reps more than the power grid.

College football has never been logical, so stop being shocked whenever something batshit happens.

The Silver Bullets allowed 74 points over the first five games of Jim Knowles' tenure in 2022, which comes out to...shit, that's harder math. Grok what's 74 divided by five? Ah yes, thank you Grok - Reader, math is woke and the world would be better if we communicated exclusively in emojis. Just the food ones. And maybe the ninja one, because ninjas.

The point is Ohio State allowed 13 points in its final regular season game last year and still found a way to lose it. Penn State just gave up 42 to UCLA, which is significantly more than the Nittany Lions allowed a week earlier against Oregon in game that expanded into double overtimes. College football has never been logical, so stop being shocked when something batshit happens.

This sport in 2025 is played by millionaires, thousandaires and plucky volunteers all together, three different classes of gladiator-sized teenager who share one common, irrefutable truth. They're college kids, capable of the extraordinary and the extraordinarily stupid.

If that just sounds like an empty platitude, strap in for a true story - this will be quick:

When I was in college, one of my roommates had an unopened gallon of strawberry ice cream in our freezer. Three of us woke up one Sunday morning to find that empty bucket laying on the floor in our kitchen. One of our other roommates later stumbled downstairs wearing a t-shirt covered in what appeared to be pink vomit stains.

He admitted to having thrown up all over himself in bed, which was covered with similar pink stains. For the next hour, he vehemently denied being the strawberry ice cream thief despite being covered in evidence.

He eventually admitted he could not remember what happened the previous evening, but could not confidently identify the source of all those pink stains. They could have come from anywhere. We never found the culprit, who is still at-large.

Extraordinary --> Ate a gallon of ice cream. Extraordinarily stupid --> I think he's an attorney now.

The point is college kids are hungover a lot, and last weekend Penn State had a Oregon hangover - then jumped on a cross-country flight and proceeded to vomit strawberry ice cream all over its road whites. They went toe-to-toe with a top-three team, and then lost to a coachless roster that hadn't had a lead in a game since 2024.

We're all enamored with Ohio State's defense through five games, which - good - we deserve to be happy for a minute as long-suffering Buckeye fans, ugh why can't they win anything of consequence. It's been consistently excellent despite being manned by college kids. Young people have been disappointing their elders ever since Cain invented sibling rivalry.

RELATED Burn After Reading (2017)

This dumb and beautiful sport is coached by twentysomethings, thirtysomethings, middle-aged dads and grandpas. Michigan could conceivably beat our beloved September juggernaut by a score of 5-3 next month in Ann Arbor depending on how deep into their feelings the adults decide to get with the game strategy.

Wait, hold on a second. Grok is it possible to score five points in football? Listen, Genghis Khan didn't deserve to be canceled - he did some good things too. IlliBuck must be protected at all costs! Let's get Situational.

OPENER | THE ACCIDENTS OF STYLE

Lorenzo Styles races down the sideline following a backwards pass from Brandon Inniss, who fielded a Minnesota punt, took two steps left and then threw the ball across the field. Josh Winslow/Eleven Warriors

The Buckeyes' third unit did something on Saturday night it hadn't done in quite awhile.

If you're looking at that photo and thinking yes, they actually made special teams an asset instead of a liability we're not quite there yet - and they didn't need to be an asset in a game like that one. That unit simply executed (mostly) competent processes in a game where the margins were obliterated by Ohio State's superior offense and stifling defense.

Maybe special teams proselytizing bores you, and if so - go ahead and skip to the Intermission now. Here's an incredibly simple barometer for judging Special Teams play - view punts and kicks through this lens and you'll be more informed and handsome for it:

• Kickoff to the 25-yard line: Push
• Punt which shifts field possession by 50 yards: Push
• Scoring on a special teams play: Good!
• Getting scored on during a special teams play: Bad!
• Pinning a team deep in its own territory: Good!
• Punting into the end zone: Bad!

Grok, I don't see missed field goals on that list - are they bad? Ah, got it. Field goals are raw milk.

Let's talk about hidden yards. Using this barometer, if a punt travels 39 yards, the receiving team picks up 11 of them. A 61-yard punt gifts 11 hidden yards to the punting team. But there's a qualitative element to this too - if that 39-yard poke was fair-caught with room to return it, that's chickenshit football.

That's eek don't make mistakes eek coaching. If that sounds just a little too familiar, O-H!

Premeditated fair catches forfeit opportunities in tenuous games while ceding the margins, which is absolutely cowardly when your recruiting is the envy of the sport. That's been OSU special teams since 2019. Here's how Saturday night played out.

Special Teams plays are a hinge where competitive games are won or lost on the margins. Pile up enough hidden yards and those 3rd down stops just outside of field goal range hit a little differently.

Parker Fleming's unit used to regularly feature things like Jayden Ballard fair-catching punts inside the 10-yard line. They routinely got penalized, usually for holding - on punts where the play was a fair catch. They lined up in illegal formations and picked up pre-snap penalties.

A sleeper agent trying to sabotage the program couldn't have done a better job. Day retained and promoted him before firing him mid-contract extension when he finally evolved into his current form.

Special teams difference makers in the Ohio State-Michigan game get to live forever.

Ohio State now has a special teams "manager" and coaches special teams scenarios by committee, which hasn't set the world on fire but it no longer sacrifices one coordinator-level coach who doesn't recruit at all (Fleming) while keeping a dynamo like James Laurinaitis chained to campus.

That's all coaching infrastructure of the distant, pre-natty past. We're not dwelling. But mediocre special teams process execution is yet not tiny forgotten dots in the rearview mirror. Not after one fun trick play on Saturday night in a blowout. NSFW:

If you're mad that I put this here, thank me for not using the 2023 one - which might be worse.

The 2024 game started out so promising on the margins before devolving into a chickenshit bloodbath. In a game where Ohio State had multiple difference makers show up on defense while packing its offense into an airtight sarcophagus led by a probably-concussed quarterback, special teams aided and abetted the visitors for the majority of the afternoon.

Wait, do you really expect Special Teams to win Michigan games? Michigan won the Snow Bowl on a blocked punt. Consecutive special teams plays won the 1979 game for Ohio State. Google Desmond Howard vs. Ohio State because I'm not linking that shit here. Google Charles Woodson, ibid. Ted Ginn Jr. flipped numerous games pulling return duty, including the 2004 one against Michigan.

So yes, I do. Special teams difference makers in the Ohio State-Michigan game live forever. The Michigan ones all win Heisman trophies. In order to have difference-making special teams for The Game, you need to cultivate that type of performance all season.

This was an admirable attempt at demonstrating that unit is actually being coached.

Special teams, special plays, special players pic.twitter.com/jh99sA8vcn

— Eleven Warriors (@11W) October 5, 2025

Ohio State's mentality for too many years about special teams has appeared to be just get off the field so the offense/defense can do what they do. That's conceding the opportunity to make it an advantage, and worse - Buckeye punters rarely if ever flip the field. Joe McGuire has more punts under 40 yards than over 50 this season.

If you have time to kill, pick any Ohio State box score since the pandemic and run that same exercise from above. When you can find a special teams outing where the Buckeyes came out on top, take it to a pawn shop and see how much money you can get for it.

Flip the field. Win hidden yards. Make field goals. It's not terribly complicated, but you have to try.

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.

When breakdancing emerged as America's contemporary departure from disco dancing I was resigned to the fact that I lacked the coordination to do it properly. As a kid in the 1980s, I just had to settle for wearing parachute pants from JC Penney. Thanks mom.

Breakdancing looked hazardous! Definitely didn't have the upper body strength to do the worm. Attempting to do the windmill would have severed my spinal cord. In the name of safety, my only move during those Dance Hall Days (situational callback) was emulating Dan Akroyd as Elwood Blues from the Soul Man live performance on SNL, which you can watch above.

Soul Man features a harmonica solo. Let's answer our two questions.

Is the musician in the video actually playing the harmonica?

Akroyd is on a spit fiddle he brought to the stage in a secured briefcase while chained and handcuffed to his wrist, suggesting it's precious cargo. Phenomenal bit. VERDICT: Yes, conclusive.

does this harmonica solo slap?

Let's all agree that we're talking about a fictional band, and that Akroyd did breakdance-challenged suburbanites a favor by creating a dance anyone with functioning knees could easily perform. Okay? Okay. He should apologize to that harmonica for abuse and ask the ghost of Little Walter for forgiveness. VERDICT: Does not slap.

^^^ the Situational tee is back in stock in all sizes, especially yours ^^^

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.

Smokeye Hill. Your 2024 National Champion.

Fred Minnick, longtime friend of The Situational and passionate OSU fan (not ours) is America's foremost bourbon enthusiast and critic - so much so that he created bourbon's version of the Grammys, Oscars, ESPYs - whatever award show you tolerate the most - and it very quickly gained the kind of esteem other accolade bodies wait decades to earn.

The ASCOTS began anointing America's best bourbons shortly after the pandemic. Last year in the Best Small Batch Bourbon category, the field included George T. Stagg, EH Taylor and Smoke Wagon Small Batch - all previous situational bourbons of elevated esteem. Crowded category!

Anyway, they all lost to Smokeye Hill. Colossal upset.

SH is a four-grainer, kind of - this normally implies corn, wheat, rye and barley. This mash bill is a two-corner; blue (floral, allegedly), yellow (sweetness, the usual for bourbons), rye (heat, depth) and barley (sophistication through fermentation).

The bend comes from four different barrel chars. No.2 gets 30 seconds of char, then 3-5 receive 35, 55 and 80 seconds respectively. The most common char in bourbon is the No.3. No.4 is referred to as the "alligator char" because of what the wood looks like after that much exposure. No.5 is the heavy toast char and introduces an elevated level of wood sugars.

So they're pulling from a variety of distillation journeys to make this. If they made vanilla bean cigarettes, that's what you get on the nose. More vanilla, plums and the oakiness from the 4 and 5 chars on the palate and finish.

It's easy to understand why it won the ASCOTs after you try it. You should be able to find it for $75 but now that it's got some awards behind it, there may be a hunter's tax on it.

CLOSER | THE SHIP BENEATH THE ICE

Minnesota quarterback Drake Lindsey had 65 yards passing on the Gophers' first drive. He had 29 the rest of the game. Josh Winslow/Eleven Warriors

Rat poison comes in two flavors - hype and expectations. Texas and Penn State are currently writhing in agony over Arch Manning not quite being as generational as he was made out to be, while Frames Janklin's steadfast commitment to being one of the sport's worst in-game coaches can't be nullified by a roster full of seasoned 23-year olds.

After Ohio State won a couple of 1 vs. 2 matchups in 2006, the entire vessel was flooded with both flavors. You know what happened next, only because they don't make drugs strong enough to forget it. Rat poison is bad.

So it makes sense that Ryan Day wants you to throw out the Indiana game during Illinois week, because an opponent having been on receiving end of a generational beatdown is rat poison and has no utility in game preparation. You aren't playing Saturday and I ran out of eligibility decades ago. We have natural immunity to rat poison.

It's the 63 part of that 63-10 demoralization that contains the actively poisonous agent. That's a big number against a ranked team, and Day is right - throw that out. If Ohio State doesn't score 63 points, it's going to feed the greatest thief of joy that life and sports presents us with - and that's comparison.

Logic has no place in this sport. Neither does rat poison, unless it's being guzzled by any of Ohio State's opponents.

The Buckeyes aren't putting up 63 on Saturday, in large part because they won't try to. It's the other number, the one in the shadows, that's more intriguing. That 10 is the revealing number. It's why you should expect no fewer than four gadget-slash-trick plays from the Illinois offense on Saturday.

In the postgame, Curt Cignetti expressed no surprise over the outcome, but it wasn't related to his team's output. He said, in explicit terms, that they watched the Illinois film (against Duke) and saw an offensive line that the Hoosiers could have their way with.

And they did - that's putting it mildly. Teams aren't static and units generally get better with games and reps, but the Illini OL is a glaring weakness. This is not a unit where blockers are passing guys off to their mates or reliably creating seals and holes. I do not expect the home team to accumulate 50 rushing yards on Saturday.

Their teammates on the other side of the ball he Illini defense has allowed points in each of the past 12 quarters and 15 of the past 16. They've played six straight weeks without a bye. **RAT POISON ALERT** Illinois will need to improve everything while all three Ohio State units underperform in order for this to be a banger.

Yeah, it's college football. Logic has no place in this sport. Neither does rat poison, unless it's being guzzled by any of Ohio State's opponents. Unfortunately, that's only happened twice over the past quarter century - Miami in 2003 and Alabama in 2015.

SITUATIONAL ARCHIVE The Situational Whiskey Cellar

It makes sense that the Buckeyes are preparing for Champaign while completely disregarding what took place in Bloomington. Anyway, bring it in close so we don't upset Ohio State's head coach - I'll say this quietly: Saturday shouldn't be competitive.

Thanks for getting Situational today. Go Bucks. Beat Illinois. Keep IlliBuck forever.