We agree on a lot more than cynics are willing to admit.
As a nation, we've never been so divided hey, you know what - unless you were live-tweeting from Fort Sumter 161 years ago and can speak from experience, the rest of us would appreciate you keeping your gloomy doom to yourself.
Division is perfectly normal. You know what else is normal? Hearty agreement and unification.
Eyeglasses make babies and dogs cuter - nobody disagrees with this. Triangles have exactly three sides. Tomatoes are technically fruits but get vegetable privileges because let's be serious, they're not fruity at all. Ever met someone willing to die on that hill? You don't. Nobody does.
We all only know one geek who says Well Actually and gives a botanical sermon nobody wanted to hear. Despite what that geek thinks, that's not dying on a hill. That's choosing to be celibate.
So we agree on triangles and tomatoes, but there's more! Thanksgiving should be two weeks earlier for a million reasons including Good for the Economy and More Christmas Hype Time. That one might be new to you, but chew on it for a minute and you'll see the light.
OHIO STATE AND UCLA SHOULD reenact the 1976 Rose Bowl uniform pairing. THEY SHOULD AVOID REENACTING the 1976 Rose Bowl outcome.
Speaking of light, Daylight Savings Time should just be permanent. Stop this springing forward and falling back bullshit every year. Babies and dogs - with or without corrective vision - can't tell time. They only tell that they're hunger or lonely.
National championship games for college football and basketball should not start at 9pm on a Monday night. Pizza is always a good idea. None of these statements are provocative. Disagreement is normal, but don't allow that to cloak you in cynicism.
See the photo atop this column, where Ohio State and UCLA are both wearing their home uniforms at the same time? That's a great idea. No one is opposed to that. They should do it on Saturday, because away teams only started wearing road uniforms when black-and-white televisions made it really hard to tell teams apart.
We've got 4K color broadcasts now, which when YouTube and Disney aren't at each other's throats make telling teams apart a completely unmysterious exercise. UCLA, if you're reading this - wear your PANTONE 2383C blues on Saturday night. Ohio State will quickly decline the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for the uniform violation. You have my word.
Please reenact the 1976 Rose Bowl uniform pairing. Do not, under any circumstance, reenact the 1976 Rose Bowl outcome. The Bruins are back in town - let's get Situational.
OPENER | THE LIES WE LEAVE BEHIND
Jeremiah Smith catches a ball in front of Purdue DB Hudauri Hines at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette on Nov. 8, 2025. © Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
The Buckeyes' streak of games which feature exactly six scoring drives is currently at five.
That's all of October and 40% of November. Six scoring drives per game, all while tinkering with running back committees, four-TE formations and rotating in offensive lineman just to see how it feels.
Brian Hartline has dialed up some of the hits from 2024, and those still work in part because they're difficult to stop. Tucked into last Saturday's performance - which was abruptly missing several regulars who definitely could have played - was an homage to the first play of the 2025 Rose Bowl.
Jeremiah Smith is the worlds greatest bait, really well designed from Coach Hartline and Coach Day.
— The Ballmanac (@The_Ballmanac) November 11, 2025
Puts the Field SCIF player in a bind with the fake block wheel and bubble from Smith.
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They just flipped the field and subbed in Max Klare for Gee Scott Jr. Had Purdue sniffed it out, Isaiah West was by himself in the middle of the field and Julian Sayin's processing speed is already good enough to pivot. This would be boring if it wasn't so impressive.
The offense doesn't run the ball particularly well, and we've assigned both blame and reasoning for this. At the top of the list is Ohio State's right guard no.77, who strings together drives featuring plays where he does not get his hands on any defenders. At all.
I don't particularly enjoy red penning players, but if you would like one prime example and a more subtle one from at Purdue, here's one of each that we can chew on together:
- Prime: 77 just had to block someone on a perfectly-called screen pass to unlock a touchdown on the drive which ended with an interception. The announcers shamed him on the replay.
- Subtle: On the first play of the game - a Bo Jackson touchdown called back for a block in the back - 77 didn't make contact with any Purdue players at all. If you photoshopped the other 21 players out of the tape, you would see him just twirling around like a 327-lb Julie Andrews. Inconsequential, but it happens a lot!
It's not a new or developing frustration. The rest of the unit making bad choices or failing to pass off defenders correctly is a burgeoning concern. Tomorrow on Film Study you'll get a deeper dive into that, but today in the unserious bourbon column you'll get a scorching hot sunshine pumper take: I'm unbothered by OSU's rickety OL play.
Everything this team has done this season has screamed Build and Sustain. It would not be a mysterious coaching technique to instruct 77 to look for a guy in the wrong-colored jersey and hit him. He's been around long enough to know this is what he's supposed to do.
Others, like freshman TE no.83 - lined up here at FB - is a teenager who still needs some grace:
They tip their hand every time he is on the field to get blocking of this quality lol pic.twitter.com/RmZsgR7XnL
— B1G_Ryan (@B1G_Ryan) November 8, 2025
The Buckeyes rotated in eight OLs, their entire TE room, five of their receivers - none of whom were Carnell Tate - four running backs and two quarterbacks in West Lafayette, all before halftime. Purdue won the 1st quarter! Reader, they are deeply unserious about impressing you in the moment, and it's condescending as hell to the opponent.
Run blocking can be downshifted to school zone speeds, rather ineffectively - which has been the case for most of this season. The Buckeyes are still beating the shit out of every team they play to the tune of Five Consecutive Games with Six Scoring Drives Apiece.
The most jarring element of the 2024 CFP 1st Round game wasn't that Ohio State opened a playbook it kept closed for most of November 30. It was an offensive line that was murdering Tennesseans as if it was performing a Battle of Franklin reenactment. Only Donovan Jackson isn't around from that run.
OHIO STATE ROLLED IN 8 OL, 5 TE, 5 WR, 4 RB and 2 QB in West Lafayette - before halftime. IT WAS A DEEPLY UNSERIOUS OUTING, BY DESIGN.
Just like the tiresome journey of trying to determine if a person is stupid or evil, the culprit here probably isn't purely scheme or execution. It's some of both - more the latter for 77, since there's an underperformance track record there, and the former for the other guys who have kicked a lot of ass on much brighter stages.
And since the defense has only allowed eight scoring drives in these past five games, we're seeing the best kind of reps a team can buy in what's mathematically the midway point of a 16-game slog. Matt Patricia's defense is performing at an elite level, largely without simulated pressure and while rotating in a lot of next year's starters.
If you want to cling to a positively jarring development, Ohio State won the special teams battle on Saturday, finishing plus-45 in hidden yards and even stringing together a couple of modest punt returns. That's likely an aberration. All the other stuff?
Feels deliberate. Like they know 2nd gear is perfectly fine until they exit the school zone.
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.
No city has more songs written about it than New York, and London is probably second with Los Angeles coming in third. I just made that up but it feels directionally accurate. And yet, even made-up rankings come with a catch.
Los Angeles doesn't capture songs written specifically about Hollywood, Santa Monica, Compton, Beverly Hills, Malibu or any other LAish municipal area. It doesn't include streets either, like PCH, Route 66, Mulholland Drive, Sunset Boulevard or the Ventura Highway (actually a freeway - which you can take to Pasadena).
Peace Frog is about...that's right, New Haven, CT. Also Chicago, Venice and Los Angeles. But political unrest, mostly. It contains an electric guitar solo. Let's answer our two questions.
Is the musician in the video actually playing the electric guitar?
Not a live version and from pre-MTV era, so not a sanctioned music video. Typing that made me sad we now live in a post-MTV era, but MTV died long before it went dead. I miss that MTV. Remember when our parents told us MTV was bad for our brains but now they get their news from insane Facebook AI slop? Old people were so innocent back then.
Doors guitarist Robby Krieger owns this solo and kick-ass riff. VERDICT: Yes, inconclusive.
does this electric guitar solo slap?
Something else I'll make up is that everyone has a favorite lyric from a song about LA. You can taste the bright lights, but you won't get there for free. I had the brew she had the chronic; the Lakers beat the Super Sonics. There's a freeway running through the yard. I left my wallet in El Segundo. MacArthur Park is melting in the dark. 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.
Stock Exchange Club of Los Angeles from R6.
Private label business is a lower-risk, high-single digit growth segment across all industries, but it's picked up a little extra steam in the booze world in part because of faster time to market, lower overhead and ambiguous consumer preference.
Focus on that third variable and then spy the bourbon pictured here. The label tells a story, and it is that the Stock Exchange Club of Los Angeles has been dormant for several years and hasn't executed a trade in ages.
TSCLA is distilled by R6 about a mile from the Pacific Ocean and less than an hour from the Rose Bowl, which tells me more about the bottle than any information that accompanied it when it arrived at my house. This bottle is available almost exclusively through whiskey clubs, which means if you're not a member it's a secondary market find. Usually those run $80-100.
Oceanside manufacturing may provide nontrivial sodium characteristics, or at least that's what Jefferson Ocean has poisoned me into believing after sailing 30-odd voyages. My best guess is we're dealing with a Level Two charred barrel, 65ish% corn and modest rye content based on how this affected my nose hairs.
Baking spice and cloves on the nose, Tahitian vanilla (that's the fruity one, right?) macaroons on the palate and smooth oaky finish. It's bourbon that says it's from LA, but based on a murky backstory...it might be from somewhere else? Oh yeah, that's the most LA thing ever.
The takeaway is you should join a whiskey club! Getting booze in the mail is fun.
CLOSER | WHEN THE MOON HITS YOUR EYE
JT Tuimoloau sacks then-Tennessee Volunteers quarterback Nico Iamaleava during the 1st half of the College Football Playoff first round game at Ohio Stadium in Columbus on Dec. 21, 2024. © Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
The good news for Nico Iamaelava is that it's supposed to be a full 21 degrees warmer at kickoff for his second visit to the stadium very briefly but formerly known as Neyland North. Which means it's set to be a balmy 46 this Saturday night.
Will his UCLA teammates bounce onto the field shirtless, doing calisthenics in some sort of performative muffin top burlesque act to suggest they enjoy Ohio's brisk seasonal depression cloud cover, actually? Amazing at it sounds, last year's CFP 1st rounder was a one of one. Nico is the singular common quirk.
His new team is the first of two consecutive opponents for Ohio State that are allowing 30 points per game, which means if you find the Buckeye offense's proclivity for live scrimmage experimentation, position drills and Putting Some Stuff on Tape for Every Opponent They Face After Thanksgiving fun, you're going to have a good time. Not a Rocky Top good time, but still enjoyable.
Unless this staff succumbs to what is hopefully a PERMANENTLY discarded vice OF making winning harder IN FAVOR OF proving meaningless points, execution is all that stands in this team's way.
In the moments which followed Indiana's escape from Happy Valley last Saturday, some consternation arose around Ohio State's utter lack of an Oh Shit game experience this season - ironically, while the team was still in West Lafayette not needing anything resembling a Holy Buckeye moment to escape with a victory.
It's an interesting thought. Both sides of the ball on this year's team have been engineered for agility, execution and quick change - it's that invisible button Day pushes when he decides it's button-pushing time. Wanting it more and trying harder aren't situational. Trusting the strategy and executing it, whether up by 30 or down by four, is how the 2025 team has been wired.
Unless this staff succumbs to what is hopefully a permanently-discarded vice of making winning harder in favor of proving meaningless points, execution is all that stands in this team's way. The last time Nico played in Ohio Stadium was our first glimpse into what this run has looked like, which makes UCLA's visit a 2024 CFP memorial of sorts. Happy early anniversary!
Thanks for getting Situational today. Go Bucks. Beat UCLA.
