Have I ever watched an OSU Spring Game more than twice?
Don't be ridiculous. Of course I have - I came of age in the previous millennium. Instant gratification was a myth. The 20th century humans constantly battled boredom - an ancient, extinct condition. We were forced to interact with other humans or our own disgusting imaginations.
It was a primitive and quaint existence. Some of us cough cough re-watched spring games.
Humanity today can barely remember a world where Internet, BTN or even ESPN Classic didn't exist to save college football addicts from the concept of an offseason. You could only watch that stuff in autumn, or on tape. Not anymore, fellow hominids.
Today, we can get our eyes on some college football instantaneously. Bam, look at this:
SAYIN TO JEREMIAH SMITH FOR THE TOUCHDOWN@OhioStateFB takes the lead pic.twitter.com/RG18zeI9uq
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) November 29, 2025
Have I watched that 4th down play more than twice? Don't be ridiculous, of course I have - that's how I can tell you watch it again but focus on how both CJ Donaldson and Max Klare were a lot more open than Jeremiah Smith was.
However, Julian Sayin had no intention of throwing the ball anywhere other than where number four was going as soon as the play arrived inside his helmet. That's championship behavior. You have the best player in the sport; hey you know what, definitely throw the ball to him on a Gotta Have It play.
No one was going to beat that team. Everyone was open on 4th down, at Michigan? That's unfair. Insurmountable, even. But one week later in Indianapolis, this offense emerged from its lab intent on devising the type of cutting edge science that would involve four tight ends on those Gotta Have It plays.
The Paleolithic lesson of sports which has not changed since we kept box scores on our un-air conditioned cave walls: Your favorite team will never stop finding creative ways to break your heart.
Ohio State linebacker James Laurinaitis during the 2007 spring game. ®Matthew Emmons-Imagn Images
What would you rather talk about on April 15? Taxes? The only H&R Block you'll see here involves Carson Hinzman and Nate Roberts orchestrating gaping holes for RBs 5 and 6, since 1-4 are unlikely to play until the games count. If these topics seem repetitive, it's because you're living in an era where the offseason doesn't exist but the takes are finite.
Back to rewatching Ohio State spring games, which in 2026 would make you a coach or a degenerate - but 30 years ago, a garden variety normal fan in need of a hit. That summer I lived in Chicago. One day I drove to an unfamiliar neighborhood and bought a dozen VHS tapes full of Ohio State games from a guy I read about in some pre-AOL chat room who said he had a whole-ass library of them.
I entered his apartment - like a willing, almost aspiring crime victim - and was greeted by crisp, air conditioned darkness. There were no lights on in the domicile. Blinds were closed, and the only visibility came from the window cracks they didn't fully cover.
The aroma of sandalwood was overwhelming. I could make out a single couch in an otherwise empty room. It was covered in what appeared to be a fitted bedsheet. A woman speaking in a language I couldn't identify was in another room, so that was comforting - at least there might be a witness to me losing a kidney.
If involuntary organ harvesting was the price to pay for Ohio State-Louisville 1992 in standard definition with all of the commercials intact, that's a hard yes. Humans are born with two kidneys for this exact reason. He was charging $5 per tape.
I handed the guy $60 and he gave me 12 items, each one having two Ohio State football games recorded on it. One of the tapes had two spring games, neither of which were possible to see outside of Ohio or Ohio Stadium. They didn't broadcast spring scrimmages nationally back then.
In hindsight I still should have negotiated a better price for that one - all I knew was I was getting access to 24 Buckeye football games but it felt like I was buying cocaine from Griselda Blanco herself. Absolute euphoria. I got my money's worth and binge-rewatched everything I secured that afternoon.
Added bonus - I left with all of my vital organs intact. Remember, everyone who doesn't live exactly the way you do is a weirdo. You're the only normal person on earth. I haven't bought a VHS tape since that day. I haven't seen a fitted bedsheet on a couch since, either.
Thirty years later, the Ohio State spring game will be broadcast nationally, as it always is now. It's barely a game and most of the starters won't play, but will you watch it? Don't be ridiculous. Let's get Situational.
OPENER | THE EVOLUTION OF IMAGINATION
Ohio State offensive coordinator Arthur Smith talks to defensive coordinator Matt Patricia during the first day of spring workouts at Woody Hayes Athletic Complex. © Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
If you've been checked out since the Cotton Bowl, here's what you've missed: Ohio State football appears to be in danger of overcorrecting everything that pissed you off about how the 2025 season ended.
If there was such a thing as a Lunatic Fringe Appeasement Strategy (there isn't) this is dangerously close to that. No aspiring head coach is titling-up to learn on the job in Columbus to the detriment of the program in 2026. No W2 is carrying more than one job description, e.g. one guy being both "Offensive Coordinator" and "Wide Receivers Coach" anymore.
It's a season of transitioning into a standard for properly allocated operating expenses and resources. The Ritz Carlton should always have amazing, fluffy bath towels. Using a face towel after taking a shower in a place like that would be mystifying behavior.
Ohio State now has a dedicated Special Teams coach who actually has a track record coaching and developing those units, and isn't some guy who was just Already In The Room when the current head coach arrived in Columbus. Anyone who argued that the Buckeyes' special teams were good enough in 2025 can take it up with Ryan Day, who clearly disagrees with you.
Former NFL head coaches not working in the NFL by choice are in Ohio State's coordinator spots, which should dazzle you more than it does. After spending 2025 without a full-time dedicated coach leading the WR room and seeing exactly zero receivers beyond the starters emerge in any fashion whatsoever, the Buckeyes once again have a qualified and un-distracted adult in charge of WRU. Please refer to the bath towel metaphor above.
Age and wisdom are no longer roster attributes football programs are forced to wait for to arrive. OHIO STATE can just order them BOTH up every off-season now.
In total, this roster features over 50 new guys, because that's the era we live in - the Buckeyes purposefully got older and wiser since December, at the expense of a sizable chunk of its youth starting over elsewhere. Age and wisdom are no longer roster attributes football programs are forced to wait for to arrive. They can just order them up every off-season now.
What that means for the 2026 season is there are no glaring oversights or hazards looming as there were in 2025, when the Buckeyes had a first-time offensive coordinator and a wildcard NFL refugee running a defense that was replacing nearly everyone.
First-time quarterback, new running backs, using hope as a strategy for special teams - it's actually incredible that team ripped off a dozen games in a row, even against what turned out to be a dogshit schedule. A year later, this looks like Day's clearest edition of Now The Players Just Need to Execute in his tenure, with 2024 and 2019 the closest comparators.
We're months away from season previews, but at this phase in the evolution it appears the program is fortified everywhere it needs to be, assessing the depth behind it and intent on not forfeiting the margins in games where they determine the outcome.
Last season - and across several other seasons under Day - losing on the margins arguably cost the Buckeyes their final two games. It's not just an Ohio State thing - Miami lost the national championship on the margins.
Their fortunes in the CFP title game turned on two plays - a gadget scheme on a punt return Indiana's special teams unit sniffed out and squashed, which put the Hurricanes' backs against their own end zone. The second play was the subsequent punt block that went for an IU touchdown after that drive faltered. The Hoosiers won by six. They won the title on the margins.
Anyway, if the Buckeyes don't achieve their goals in 2026, it won't be because they cut corners.
INTERMISSION
The Finish
As an homage to the 2025 season which began with 12 wins and ended with two crushing losses, musical intermissions for the 2026 season will revolve not around instrument solos, but how songs end.
Our category today is Best Mixed Gender Bands, and you can only pick five finalists. Mine are The Pixies, The White Stripes, The Pretenders, The Cranberries and the winners, responsible for today's intermission.
Honorable mentions to No Doubt, the original Beastie Boys with Kate Schellenbach, The Carpenters, Smashing Pumpkins and Eurythmics. I could do 5,000 words on this, but intermission is a word, and words have meaning. Jefferson Airplane is disqualified due to crimes committed as Jefferson Starship and later, Starship. Okay, done. Let's answer our two questions.
what makes this song's finish slap?
We need to take a step back first. Silver Springs is a breakup song by Stevie Nicks about Lindsay Buckingham. Go Your Own Way is a breakup song by Buckingham about Nicks. The latter became one of the greatest songs of all time on one of the greatest albums of all time. The former was relegated to B-side for the latter and disappeared for 21 years.
That's when the band performed it live as part of its reunion tour, which is what's above. Nicks takes 21 years of breakup sadness and professional frustration and proceeds to murder Buckingham on stage in front of a live audience to close out the song, the reunion and the sentinel live performance of the best mixed-gender band of all time. VERDICT: If Faces of Death was a slow dance.
How hard does this finish slap?
Starship's Hague-worthy album was called Knee Deep in the Hoopla, which - think about it - is barely any hoopla. It's a flooded unfinished basement of hoopla. Words have meaning. The guy who wrote We Built this City still has never been imprisoned or arrested because he also wrote literally every Elton John song. He knew how bad it was. That's why he spared Elton.
Conversely, Fleetwood Mac were perfect - tender, loving and violent to the point of harmonized second degree murder. Buckingham's spectacular death as Nicks shouted into his hollow corpse only cemented the legend. In American history, only Abraham Lincoln has ever had a worse time in a theater. VERDICT: Slaps 13/10
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.
Bourbon lemonade. Glassware available here, sometimes.
If you're attending the scrimmage game exhibition perfectly reasonable excuse to sit in Ohio Stadium on Saturday, note that it's going to get into the mid-70s. You've been bulking up since Thanksgiving, which means the likelihood of you pitting out in your gray t-shirt is close to 90%.
There's a bourbon for that, but it requires accents in the form of ice cubes, fresh lemons, your powerful forearms and just the right amount of gumption. Can I use a powder mix like Crystal Light or Countrytime listen, if you think that little of yourself then sure - take a shortcut. That's the best way to become vulnerable in a talent-equated game.
Get eight fresh lemons and squeeze them into a pitcher until the rinds are close to disintegrating. In a separate container, combine a cup of sugar with a cup of warm water - this is a harmless shortcut for simple syrup; you're going to end up with a high-volume cold pitcher of booze, so this is fine.
Now add that to your pitcher where your lemon juice is. Add one cup of bourbon, and here's how you decide which one - if you want sweet lemonade, use a wheated, like Makers Mark. For spice, use high-rye, like Four Roses or a first-shelf Old Forester. If you want feel it in your brain stem, use a high-proofer like Wild Turkey 101.
You now have simple syrup, lemon juice and whiskey juice in your pitcher. Fill it to the top with ice cubes. Pour cold filtered water in until it reaches your preferred dilution level.
Now pour that pitcher into another pitcher, and back again a couple of times. It's now mixed and ready to serve, and because you put some effort into this it's going to taste like a tax bracket you wish you could complain about being in. Enjoy the spring game.
CLOSER | THE COLD LIGHT OF LOOMING STARS
Davon Hamilton's attempted punt block in 2018 did not go the way he intended it to.
The Buckeyes have a kid named Legend who has never played college football and is not yet a legend. They also have another running back named Turbo who is probably the fifth-fastest guy in that room. He's probably not going to be in pads on Saturday.
This spring game is going to be different from the recent ones in that there's no dangerous portal window cracked open for anyone on the current roster to be snatched out of, as a result of over-performing while being whispered to about how deep Ohio State is at his position. That means showing off is not a double-edged sword on Saturday.
That shouldn't be confused with Arthur Smith showing off offensive schemes or strategies. If we're treated to Four verts, Wing-T, or the Indianapolis Red Zone Special where it's oops nothing but tight ends - none of this will count as tipping the Buckeyes' hand for what to expect in September.
Defensively, it's different. When Matt Patricia's unit goes 4-3, 3-4 or 3-2-5 and 3-2-6, that simply means the Buckeyes are going to run everything because they can, and showing off how multiple they can be isn't tipping anything everyone doesn't already know.
And since nearly all of the running backs - the aforementioned Legend, Turbo and every guy who saw carry the ball last year who still has eligibility and an OSU student ID card - are injured, and sacks will range from Thud to Two-Hand Touch, you're just going to see some dudes flying around, man.
That's it. A preview can be seen in the promotion:
(Spring) Game week is FINALLY here
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) April 13, 2026
April 18
@BigTenNetwork
12:00pm
#GoBucks pic.twitter.com/oB6ogGaG51
Jermaine Matthews giving Brandon Inniss a sizable cushion, but only for a few minutes before they exit the field and you're forced to reckon with guys wearing numbers you can't immediately identify. If someone pops, flashes, dazzles - that's still not a great indicator of future returns.
We'll likely be treated to a healthy dose of Ja'Kobi Jackson out of the backfield. SPOILER: He's going to appear to be polished, poised and Built for This, which is exciting for Buckeye fans but also because he graduated high school in 2020 and entering his seventh year of college football. This game is now run and won by old guys.
He'll contend with Bo Jackson and Isaiah West this fall, along with Legend, Turbo, Favour (Akih) and Stanley Jackson Jr, who is the son of That Stanley Jackson. It feels like a deep room if not for 67% of the room not being medically cleared to play. Spring is for big dreams. Sometimes those dreams become reality.
Bam Childress is pictured tearing up the 2003 spring game atop this column (#dreams) while Maurice Clarett doing the same exactly one April earlier (#reality) closes us out. Do we still do hashtags? I haven't kept up. We still do spring games, and they're still not conflicting with the Kentucky Derby because Earle Bruce said so (#gambler #rip).
Most of what we see on Saturday will be for promotional purposes only. Please watch responsibly.
Thanks for getting Situational today. Go Gray. Beat Scarlet.
