Ohio State arguments

The record will tell us some things are facts, but many others can certainly be argued when it comes to the Ohio State football team. For example, they're playing tonight against Oregon for the national championship. No sane person would argue otherwise. Also, at the beginning of the year, the Buckeyes were considered amongst the favorites to wind up where they are now.

But then a chain of events happened to that program over the season which raises some interesting points. In roughly chronological order, it could certainly be argued......

When then starting QB Braxton Miller went down before the season even started, most at the time wrote off the Buckeyes chances. They went from an 8 or 10 to one shot to a whopping 50:1. No doubt, a few bettors plopped down a C-note just for kicks at those odds, but pretty much kissed it good-bye. I'll get back to that.

Then second-stringer J.T. Barrett stepped up and it could be argued he was every bit as good, if not better, than Miller.

But when the Buckeyes got trounced at home by Virginia Tech, any national aspirations went poof. It was over.

Alas, Barrett himself would succumb to a season-ending injury. Next up, third-stringer Cardale Jones. It could be argued he was/is even better than Barrett and Miller. Making his first starts, he led the Buckeyes to a 59-0 thrashing of Wisconsin in the Big Ten championship game, and followed up by knocking off then #1 mighty Alabama 42-35 in Sugar Bowl national semi-finals. This was very impressive stuff. No argument about it.

Considering the above, it could be argued that OSU head coach Urban Meyer had his QB depth chart bass-ackwards all along.

Certainly there was a huge argument whether or not OSU should have leap-frogged other one-loss teams like Baylor and TCU at the last second to land in the Final Four. But that's history as well, It happened. Further, given the results of the Wisconsin and Bama games, would anyone now seriously argue OSU is "out of place" or "over their heads" playing for the championship? I think not. Whether they can knock off Oregon remains to be seen. Indeed, they're a 6.5 point underdog.

Urban Meyer and his Buckeyes certainly run the gamut of emotions when it comes to fans. Some people love them. Others, for various reasons, hate them with a passion. There's not a whole lot of middle ground when it comes to fandom regarding OSU football. Either your fer-em or agin-em.

Conversely, it could be argued that nobody totally despises Oregon. Yeah, there's jealousy, sour grapes, and even rivalries here and there, but c'mon, can anybody really hate a bunch of Road Runnerish Ducks?

What is fact is those people that plopped the C-notes down months ago at 50:1 on Ohio State are feeling pretty good right now. A $100 basically thrown to the wind a while back might just be worth 5 grand in a few hours.

Best case scenario for the bookies? Oregon wins, but doesn't cover the 6.5. Don't be surprised. They don't call them wise guys for nothing.

We'll see.

On to the game.