The Scarlet and Gray
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Caesar
- Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16683
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
The Scarlet and Gray
Gonna be a crazy portal season with all of these guys entering.
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toysoldier00
Topic author - Posts: 453
- Joined: 14 Nov 2025, 10:58
The Scarlet and Gray
Yeah, im gonna pay close attention to it, at least for year one, when people still know who everyone is. Should make season two around the country more interesting.
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toysoldier00
Topic author - Posts: 453
- Joined: 14 Nov 2025, 10:58
The Scarlet and Gray
Ohio State’s 2025 Portal Class Was a Mixed Bag — and the Lesson Matters More Than Ever
By Zachary Anderson on December 27, 2025
North Carolina transfer Beau Atkinson has only played 173 snaps this year after he was a big addition in the Transfer Portal.
With Ohio State preparing for a playoff quarterfinal against Miami on Dec. 31, it’s tempting to treat the transfer portal like a January problem. But the calendar doesn’t care about your bracket.
The portal opens Jan. 2, which means Ohio State’s roster-building for 2026 will start whether the Buckeyes are still playing football or not. That’s why it’s worth taking a hard look at last year’s portal class now, not to relitigate it, but to understand what actually worked, what didn’t, and what should change in the way Ohio State approaches the market.
Because for all the headlines that come with “portal season,” Ohio State’s biggest takeaway from 2025 might be the simplest: spending doesn’t guarantee certainty, and projection shopping is a gamble even when you’re Ohio State.
The Home Run Was Real — and It Shows the Standard
The clearest win in the class was TE Max Klare, and it wasn’t close. Klare didn’t just “fill a need.” He became a pillar of the offense and a weekly problem for defenses trying to bracket Jeremiah Smith while also living in fear of Julian Sayin’s timing routes.
He’s produced like an All-Big Ten tight end, and his usage has felt like an admission from the staff: yes, you can build explosive passing offense through the middle of the field if the tight end is good enough to demand respect.
That’s the portal at its best. A proven Big Ten player with a translatable skill set, stepping into a role that exists in the scheme, with a quarterback who will actually use him. It’s not just that Klare hit, it’s why he hit. Ohio State didn’t buy upside. It bought a finished product.
The High-Dollar Miss That Can’t Happen Again
On the other end is OL Ethan Onianwa, and there’s no way around it: that one didn’t work the way Ohio State needed it to. He was brought in with “solve the tackle situation” expectations and never truly became that. Even when snaps piled up and the opportunity was there, he didn’t elevate the line, if anything, he became the spot opponents circled.
This is where portal spending gets dangerous. When you pay starter money for a player who’s a projection to your level, you’re not just paying for what he is, you’re paying for what you hope he’ll become. Ohio State can afford to take swings, but it can’t afford to miss at premium positions that define playoff games.
The “Starter, But…” Tier Is a Warning Sign
OL Phillip Daniels falls into the complicated middle: Ohio State did get a functional starter for most of the season. That has value. But the way the season ended, with Ian Moore stepping in and looking like the better option quickly enough to keep the job, reframes what Daniels was. More stabilizer than difference-maker.
That isn’t a disaster, but it is a reminder that “starting caliber” is not the same thing as “Ohio State standard.” If you’re paying portal money, the goal shouldn’t be to find someone who can survive. It should be to find someone who tilts the field.
The Rest of the Class: Lots of Roster Spots, Not Many Wins
After Klare, the returns were mostly thin. EDGE Beau Atkinson never seriously threatened the top of the rotation. RB CJ Donaldson was supposed to be a complementary hammer and ended up a short-yardage cameo, the kind of player you notice on the depth chart more than on Saturdays. EDGE Logan George didn’t provide meaningful snaps.
K Jackson Courville did what you want a specialist transfer to do, compete, accept a role, handle kickoffs, but that’s a narrow lane. And QB Eli Brickhandler was always a depth-and-practice move, which is fine, but it doesn’t change the evaluation of the class.
This is where the bigger theme shows up: Ohio State took multiple bets on players “moving up a level,” and most of those bets didn’t pay off.
The Pattern: The Big Ten Guys Hit, the Projections Didn’t
If you’re looking for the through-line, it’s right there. The best portal adds were the ones who already looked like Big Ten players. The guys who were asked to jump multiple rungs, from FCS to Ohio State depth, from Group of Five to high-leverage Power Four snaps, from “productive elsewhere” to “productive against playoff fronts”, mostly didn’t translate.
That doesn’t mean Ohio State should never take a developmental portal player. It means Ohio State shouldn’t pay like a contender for a projection like a rebuild. Those are different shopping lists.
The 2026 Portal Lesson: Pay for Certainty or Trust Your Kids
The most uncomfortable truth for portal enthusiasts is also the most useful: Ohio State’s young, recruited talent often ended up being the better option anyway. Bo Jackson didn’t need a pitch deck. Ian Moore didn’t need a rebrand. They just needed snaps.
So the blueprint for January shouldn’t be “add bodies.” It should be targeted and ruthless: if Ohio State is going to spend, spend on plug-and-play, high-end, high-floor players from the Big Ten and SEC, or all-conference types, proven starters, guys who have already lived in the speed of elite football.
And if those guys aren’t available at a price that makes sense, the fallback shouldn’t be “buy the next best projection.” The fallback should be “develop the blue-chips already in the building.”
Because whether Ohio State beats Miami or not, wins the National Championship or not, the program is already living in the next season at the most important positions: up front, on the edges, and in the rotation spots that decide whether a team is a contender or just talented. The portal opens Jan. 2. Ohio State needs a plan that looks more like Max Klare and less like hoping.
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djp73
- Posts: 13076
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 13:42
The Scarlet and Gray
Wow a lot of movement in the portal, will be fun to see where they all end up. Yall got to reload
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toysoldier00
Topic author - Posts: 453
- Joined: 14 Nov 2025, 10:58
The Scarlet and Gray
The Case: How 2025 Ohio State Is Forcing the “Greatest Ever” Conversation
By Bailey Lloyd
December 28, 2025
There’s a certain kind of season that doesn’t feel like a sequence of Saturdays as much as a slow, unavoidable unveiling. A team wins early, wins big, keeps winning, and eventually the questions stop being about who can beat them and become about what they are. Not just in the context of the year, but in the context of the sport.
That’s where Ohio State is living on December 28, 2025: 13–0, Big Ten champions, the only remaining undefeated team, and the undisputed No. 1 program in the country. The Buckeyes play ACC champion Miami in three days in the Rose Bowl, a College Football Playoff quarterfinal that reads like a marquee bowl and feels like a formality only because of what Ohio State has done to everyone else.
And that’s the tension of the moment. If you’re trying to be responsible about college football history, you’re not supposed to start carving statues in December. The pantheon is reserved for teams that finish the job, that win the last game, that walk out 16–0 with nothing left to prove.
But some teams don’t wait for permission.
Ohio State’s résumé isn’t just undefeated. It’s untouched. Not one game decided by fewer than 18 points. Not one fourth-quarter panic. Not one “they escaped.” Every Saturday has been a margin, a message, or both. Their conference title win over Indiana, 42–17, was the season’s loudest statement because it was delivered to the only other undefeated team left standing at the time. Indiana didn’t just belong; the Hoosiers have already validated that by beating BYU 31–17 to reach the quarterfinals. Ohio State still turned the game into evidence.
What makes this group so dangerous to discuss is that it doesn’t fit neatly into a single “all-time” template. The historic teams tend to have a calling card: 2019 LSU’s offensive symphony, 2001 Miami’s NFL roster depth chart, 2020 Alabama’s ruthless efficiency. Ohio State is arguing, quietly, that the ceiling is higher when you can credibly claim all of it at once.
Start with the obvious: the talent is suffocating.
Julian Sayin finished as the Heisman runner-up, and he doesn’t play like a runner-up. He plays like a quarterback who knows the answer key. As the season progressed, Ryan Day’s offense didn’t merely lean pass-heavy, it became a weekly demonstration of what happens when a system built for quarterbacks finally gets a roster that makes “unfair” feel like a legitimate scouting term.
Jeremiah Smith just won the Biletnikoff, which is almost underselling it. Around the sport, he’s viewed as the best player in college football regardless of position, the rare receiver who warps coverages before the snap and still wins after it. Across from him is Carnell Tate, a projected first-round pick next April, which creates the kind of dilemma defensive coordinators talk about like it’s weather: you can prepare, and it still arrives.
Ohio State is tied with Ole Miss for the nation’s best scoring offense at 41.8 points per game, and it doesn’t feel like a gimmick number. It feels like the natural result of a passing game that’s turned third-and-medium into a recurring insult.
“We’re not chasing style points,” Day said this week, in the way coaches always say they aren’t chasing style points right before putting up another 40. “But when you have players like that, your job is to let them be who they are.”
That would be enough to headline most national title teams. It’s not enough to explain why people are creeping toward “greatest ever.”
Because the defense is even more damning.
Ohio State leads the country in scoring defense at 12.2 points per game. It also leads the country in total defense at 271.1 yards allowed per game. And the stat that makes old-school people sit up straight is the run defense: 47.8 rushing yards allowed per game, a number that reads like a typo in an era that is built to manufacture rushing efficiency.
The face of that unit is safety Caleb Downs, the Thorpe Award winner and the consensus best defensive player in college football. His numbers look like a player who’s everywhere because he is: 86 tackles, 10 tackles for loss, a sack, an interception, 10 pass breakups, two forced fumbles, three recoveries, and two defensive touchdowns. But the thing that comes up most when opponents talk about him isn’t the athleticism, though it’s there. It’s the processing. Downs plays like he knows what you called.
“He’s the smartest guy on the field,” Indiana coach Curt Cignetti said after the Big Ten title game. “Not ‘smart for a safety.’ Smart, period. You feel him before you see him.”
Linebackers Arvell Reese and Sonny Styles have turned the middle of the field into a closed lane, and the broader personnel reality is what makes this team feel inevitable: Ohio State’s defense doesn’t have one or two pros. It plays like it might have an NFL player at every starting spot, with three to four first-round picks among them. That kind of depth is how you end up with box-score domination that looks almost casual.
It also explains why the most credible criticism of Ohio State right now is the least satisfying: schedule strength. Penn State finished 6–6 after collapsing late, which weakens the optics of a 31–13 win. There weren’t weekly top-10 knife fights. Some of this season has felt like Ohio State playing the long version of a highlight reel.
But the Buckeyes do have credible proof points: a 31–13 win over No. 16 Texas, a 45–22 win at No. 18 Michigan, and the demolition of undefeated Indiana. It wasn’t a gauntlet, but it was enough to show the ceiling is real.
So where does that leave the “greatest ever” conversation?
The honest answer is that it leaves it exactly where it belongs: waiting on January, but no longer dismissible in December.
If Ohio State finishes 16–0, it will invite direct comparisons to 2001 Miami’s avalanche of NFL talent, to 2019 LSU’s week-to-week offensive brilliance, to 2020 Alabama’s machine-like certainty. And if it does so while pairing the nation’s top scoring offense with the nation’s top scoring defense, while never letting a game get within 18—then the argument won’t be about nostalgia or era adjustments. It will be about dominance that translates across any era because it is built on the most era-proof commodity of all: elite players everywhere.
Steve Sarkisian, whose Texas team left Columbus with a 31–13 loss, put it more bluntly afterward: “They’re not just good at one thing. They can beat you however the game turns.”
Miami is next. Then two more. Ohio State doesn’t need a single defining moment because the season itself has been a compilation of them. The point isn’t that they’re already the greatest ever.
The point is that they’re close enough to make everyone start checking the old lists, and realizing, a little uncomfortably, that history might need to clear some room.
December 28, 2025
There’s a certain kind of season that doesn’t feel like a sequence of Saturdays as much as a slow, unavoidable unveiling. A team wins early, wins big, keeps winning, and eventually the questions stop being about who can beat them and become about what they are. Not just in the context of the year, but in the context of the sport.
That’s where Ohio State is living on December 28, 2025: 13–0, Big Ten champions, the only remaining undefeated team, and the undisputed No. 1 program in the country. The Buckeyes play ACC champion Miami in three days in the Rose Bowl, a College Football Playoff quarterfinal that reads like a marquee bowl and feels like a formality only because of what Ohio State has done to everyone else.
And that’s the tension of the moment. If you’re trying to be responsible about college football history, you’re not supposed to start carving statues in December. The pantheon is reserved for teams that finish the job, that win the last game, that walk out 16–0 with nothing left to prove.
But some teams don’t wait for permission.
Ohio State’s résumé isn’t just undefeated. It’s untouched. Not one game decided by fewer than 18 points. Not one fourth-quarter panic. Not one “they escaped.” Every Saturday has been a margin, a message, or both. Their conference title win over Indiana, 42–17, was the season’s loudest statement because it was delivered to the only other undefeated team left standing at the time. Indiana didn’t just belong; the Hoosiers have already validated that by beating BYU 31–17 to reach the quarterfinals. Ohio State still turned the game into evidence.
What makes this group so dangerous to discuss is that it doesn’t fit neatly into a single “all-time” template. The historic teams tend to have a calling card: 2019 LSU’s offensive symphony, 2001 Miami’s NFL roster depth chart, 2020 Alabama’s ruthless efficiency. Ohio State is arguing, quietly, that the ceiling is higher when you can credibly claim all of it at once.
Start with the obvious: the talent is suffocating.
Julian Sayin finished as the Heisman runner-up, and he doesn’t play like a runner-up. He plays like a quarterback who knows the answer key. As the season progressed, Ryan Day’s offense didn’t merely lean pass-heavy, it became a weekly demonstration of what happens when a system built for quarterbacks finally gets a roster that makes “unfair” feel like a legitimate scouting term.
Jeremiah Smith just won the Biletnikoff, which is almost underselling it. Around the sport, he’s viewed as the best player in college football regardless of position, the rare receiver who warps coverages before the snap and still wins after it. Across from him is Carnell Tate, a projected first-round pick next April, which creates the kind of dilemma defensive coordinators talk about like it’s weather: you can prepare, and it still arrives.
Ohio State is tied with Ole Miss for the nation’s best scoring offense at 41.8 points per game, and it doesn’t feel like a gimmick number. It feels like the natural result of a passing game that’s turned third-and-medium into a recurring insult.
“We’re not chasing style points,” Day said this week, in the way coaches always say they aren’t chasing style points right before putting up another 40. “But when you have players like that, your job is to let them be who they are.”
That would be enough to headline most national title teams. It’s not enough to explain why people are creeping toward “greatest ever.”
Because the defense is even more damning.
Ohio State leads the country in scoring defense at 12.2 points per game. It also leads the country in total defense at 271.1 yards allowed per game. And the stat that makes old-school people sit up straight is the run defense: 47.8 rushing yards allowed per game, a number that reads like a typo in an era that is built to manufacture rushing efficiency.
The face of that unit is safety Caleb Downs, the Thorpe Award winner and the consensus best defensive player in college football. His numbers look like a player who’s everywhere because he is: 86 tackles, 10 tackles for loss, a sack, an interception, 10 pass breakups, two forced fumbles, three recoveries, and two defensive touchdowns. But the thing that comes up most when opponents talk about him isn’t the athleticism, though it’s there. It’s the processing. Downs plays like he knows what you called.
“He’s the smartest guy on the field,” Indiana coach Curt Cignetti said after the Big Ten title game. “Not ‘smart for a safety.’ Smart, period. You feel him before you see him.”
Linebackers Arvell Reese and Sonny Styles have turned the middle of the field into a closed lane, and the broader personnel reality is what makes this team feel inevitable: Ohio State’s defense doesn’t have one or two pros. It plays like it might have an NFL player at every starting spot, with three to four first-round picks among them. That kind of depth is how you end up with box-score domination that looks almost casual.
It also explains why the most credible criticism of Ohio State right now is the least satisfying: schedule strength. Penn State finished 6–6 after collapsing late, which weakens the optics of a 31–13 win. There weren’t weekly top-10 knife fights. Some of this season has felt like Ohio State playing the long version of a highlight reel.
But the Buckeyes do have credible proof points: a 31–13 win over No. 16 Texas, a 45–22 win at No. 18 Michigan, and the demolition of undefeated Indiana. It wasn’t a gauntlet, but it was enough to show the ceiling is real.
So where does that leave the “greatest ever” conversation?
The honest answer is that it leaves it exactly where it belongs: waiting on January, but no longer dismissible in December.
If Ohio State finishes 16–0, it will invite direct comparisons to 2001 Miami’s avalanche of NFL talent, to 2019 LSU’s week-to-week offensive brilliance, to 2020 Alabama’s machine-like certainty. And if it does so while pairing the nation’s top scoring offense with the nation’s top scoring defense, while never letting a game get within 18—then the argument won’t be about nostalgia or era adjustments. It will be about dominance that translates across any era because it is built on the most era-proof commodity of all: elite players everywhere.
Steve Sarkisian, whose Texas team left Columbus with a 31–13 loss, put it more bluntly afterward: “They’re not just good at one thing. They can beat you however the game turns.”
Miami is next. Then two more. Ohio State doesn’t need a single defining moment because the season itself has been a compilation of them. The point isn’t that they’re already the greatest ever.
The point is that they’re close enough to make everyone start checking the old lists, and realizing, a little uncomfortably, that history might need to clear some room.
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Captain Canada
- Posts: 7706
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
The Scarlet and Gray
Miami in for one hell of an ass-whooping. Better not stumble here or Soapy will never let you hear the end of it
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toysoldier00
Topic author - Posts: 453
- Joined: 14 Nov 2025, 10:58
The Scarlet and Gray
CFP Round 2 Preview: Quarterfinals Set the Tone for the Title Chase
Marissa BledayDecember 29, 2025
The first round of the College Football Playoff gave us exactly what this expanded format promised: a few teams affirmed, a few teams exposed, and a few programs that suddenly look like they belong on the same field with the sport’s heavyweights.
Now the quarterfinals arrive with the stakes turned all the way up, blue bloods, new bloods, and four matchups that feel like they’re each deciding something bigger than the score.
#9 Miami Hurricanes (12-2) at 
#1 Ohio State Buckeyes (13-0)Start with the Rose Bowl, where #9 Miami (12-2) meets #1 Ohio State (13-0) in the sport’s most cinematic setting and its most ruthless reality check. Miami’s 34-17 win at Oklahoma did more than move the Hurricanes forward; it legitimized them as a complete team in a way that September conversations never quite do.
Mario Cristobal’s group ran through contact, won at the line of scrimmage, and got a clean, confident performance from Carson Beck (291 yards, three touchdowns). That version of Miami can bother anyone, especially if the run game is functioning and Beck stays on time.
But the word “anyone” has an asterisk when it comes to Ohio State. The Buckeyes have been the most consistent team in America all season: defending champions, last unbeaten, and so balanced that even an off-quarter doesn’t feel like it matters.
Their offense has the kind of spacing and star power that forces defenses to pick a poison and then drink it anyway, Julian Sayin distributing to Jeremiah Smith, Carnell Tate, Max Klare, and a rotation of speed that turns one missed tackle into a 60-yard headline.
And defensively, Ohio State is as violent as it is disciplined. Caleb Downs is the eraser, Arvell Reese and Sonny Styles close windows before they fully open, and Matt Patricia’s unit has made a habit of flipping games with early takeaways.
If Miami is going to make this a fight, it likely starts with limiting explosive plays and winning the hidden downs, third-and-medium, red zone possessions, and the moments when the Buckeyes normally snap an opponent’s spirit.
#5 Oregon Ducks (12-1) at 
#4 Ole Miss Rebels (11-1)If the Rose Bowl is the sport’s glamour game, the Cotton Bowl might be the best football game of the round. #5 Oregon (12-1) versus #4 Ole Miss (11-1) is speed-on-speed, scheme-on-scheme, and two offenses that can make a defense feel like it’s covering air.
Oregon handled Tulane 41-16 in Round 1 and looked refreshed doing it, Dante Moore sharp, Dierre Hill Jr. explosive, and the Ducks’ defensive front disruptive enough to make every dropback uncomfortable.
Dan Lanning will tell you this is why you build a roster: to play games like this with everything still in front of you.
Ole Miss is here because Lane Kiffin finally has the thing he’s always wanted to pair with his play sheet: stability at quarterback. Trinidad Chambliss has started the last eight games and played like a grown-up the whole time, 2,249 passing yards, 16 touchdowns, and seven more scores on the ground with zero turnovers.
That’s the kind of efficiency that keeps you alive when possessions matter and the margins shrink.
Ole Miss can score in a blink, but it can also survive the ugly stretches, and that matters against Oregon’s ability to turn one stop into a two-score swing.
If there’s a “first to 30 wins” vibe anywhere this weekend, it’s here.
#6 Indiana Hoosiers (13-1) at 
#3 Texas Tech Red Raiders (12-1)
The Orange Bowl brings a different kind of intrigue, the sport’s best story against one of its most ferocious identities. #6 Indiana (13-1) versus #3 Texas Tech (12-1) isn’t a traditional brand showdown, but it might be the purest contrast.
Indiana has the Heisman winner at quarterback and that “team of destiny” energy that starts to feel real when it keeps surviving the moments that are supposed to break it. Fernando Mendoza has been the ultimate equalizer all season, and the Hoosiers have enough skill talent to punish a defense that gets impatient.
Texas Tech, though, has the antidote to fairy tales: pressure that arrives like it was called in advance. David Bailey is the headliner, but the Red Raiders’ pass rush is the story, a unit that doesn’t just chase sacks, it collapses games. The question people will keep asking Tech is about résumé: they’ve been excellent, and they’re here because they handled what they had to handle, but they haven’t lived in as many “survive and prove it” moments as some of the other contenders.
If Tech can rattle Mendoza early and force Indiana into long-yardage situations, the Orange Bowl could tilt quickly. If Indiana protects its quarterback and turns this into a rhythm game, suddenly the Hoosiers are right back where they’ve lived all season: calm, efficient, and annoying to kill.
#10 Notre Dame Fighting Irish (11-2) at 
#2 Texas A&M Aggies (12-1)And then there’s the Sugar Bowl, #10 Notre Dame (11-2) against #2 Texas A&M (12-1), which feels like it could be decided by temperament as much as talent. Notre Dame’s comeback win at Georgia was the kind of performance that changes a team’s self-image.
CJ Carr played fearless in the fourth quarter, Jeremiyah Love ran like a Doak Walker winner should, and Marcus Freeman’s program looked like it belonged in the deepest part of the bracket. The Irish aren’t flashy, but they’re stubborn, and they can win a game without playing perfect.
Texas A&M has been full of plot twists, too. The Aggies were doubted after the loss at Texas, then turned around and beat Georgia in Atlanta to win the SEC. Mike Elko’s team plays the kind of defense that travels, and the question is whether the rhythm offense shows up after the layoff.
Marcel Reed at his best is poised and decisive; at his worst, he can drift when the first read isn’t clean. Against Notre Dame’s ability to muddy games into trench fights, A&M’s margin might live in the early drives, can they start fast, dictate pace, and keep Carr from getting comfortable?
Four games, four different kinds of pressure. Miami is trying to prove it can live in the deep end. Oregon and Ole Miss are trying to outscore each other without blinking first. Indiana is trying to keep the dream alive against a defense built to end dreams.
Notre Dame and Texas A&M are trying to see which version of themselves is real. It’s the quarterfinals, and for the teams that survive, the playoff stops feeling like a tournament and starts feeling like a truth serum.
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toysoldier00
Topic author - Posts: 453
- Joined: 14 Nov 2025, 10:58
The Scarlet and Gray
Game Preview: Ohio State’s Machine Meets Miami’s Trench Fury in CFP Quarterfinal
By Zachary Anderson on December 30, 2025
The Rose Bowl doesn’t need help feeling historic, but Ohio State and Miami will provide it anyway on Wednesday night, meeting in a College Football Playoff quarterfinal that pairs the sport’s most complete team with one of its most dangerous “if we’re right up front, we’re live” challengers.
Ohio State arrives 13-0, Big Ten champions again, and finally unburdened by the Michigan weight that hung over the season until Ryan Day’s group throttled the Wolverines in Ann Arbor and followed it with a 42-17 win over Indiana for the conference crown.
Miami, 12-2 with midseason bruises against Louisville and SMU, has looked reborn over the last two weeks, first winning the ACC title and then walking into Norman and beating Oklahoma 34-17 to earn this shot.
Day has spent the month emphasizing that the Buckeyes can’t treat the Rose Bowl like a reward.
“We didn’t come out here to take pictures,” he said. “We came out here to play the most physical football of the season. Miami’s earned this. We have to earn what’s next.”
That “what’s next” is driven by the combination that made Ohio State the No. 1 seed: a top-ranked offense by points (41.8 PPG) paired with the nation’s best defense (12.2 PPG, 271.1 YPG), a profile so clean it almost feels unfair.
Julian Sayin finished second in the Heisman race after throwing for 3,744 yards and 38 touchdowns, and he’s got the kind of supporting cast that turns defensive game plans into wishful thinking.
Jeremiah Smith, the Miami kid who picked Ohio State over the hometown program, is the Biletnikoff winner with 96 catches, 1,296 yards and 15 scores, and he’s not alone: Carnell Tate, Max Klare and Brandon Inniss give Sayin answers everywhere, while James Peoples and Bo Jackson keep the Buckeyes from becoming one-dimensional.
Miami’s path to an upset is obvious, and it starts with pressure. Reuben Bain Jr. (16.5 sacks) and Akheem Mesidor (11.5) can wreck protections, Justin Scott can dent pockets from the inside, and Zechariah Poyser and Mohammed Toure give the Hurricanes real teeth behind it. Cristobal didn’t hide the identity his team is leaning on.
“This game is going to be decided in the most old-school way possible,” he said. “Can you protect your quarterback, can you tackle, can you finish drives? Ohio State is elite. To beat them, you have to take something from them.”
Miami’s offense is built differently than Ohio State’s, but it’s not short on firepower. Carson Beck threw for 3,987 yards with 31 touchdowns, and while the interceptions (12) are the risk, the weapons are the reward: Tony Johnson, CJ Daniels, freshman Malachi Toney and tight end Alex Bauman can all win routes, and Mark Fletcher Jr. (1,222 yards, 13 TD) is the kind of back who keeps you honest for four quarters.
The problem is that “keeping you honest” doesn’t mean much against Ohio State’s defense, which has lived on third-down suffocation (55% conversion rate on offense, +16 turnover margin overall) and the weekly inevitability of Caleb Downs and Arvell Reese showing up at the exact wrong time for the opponent.
If there’s a quiet, shared flaw that could keep this closer than the betting line, it’s the red zone. Ohio State has left points on the table all year (44 TDs, 13 FGs on 88 trips), and Miami has been even shakier inside the 20. In a one-game season, that matters.
But the larger truth is simpler: Miami is talented enough to make this a fight, mean enough up front to make Sayin uncomfortable, and skilled enough to punish mistakes, and Ohio State is good enough, everywhere, to make “almost” feel like a compliment.
| Date | Opponent | Stadium | TV | Result |
| Aug. 30 |  Texas Longhorns | Ohio Stadium |  | W, 31-13 |
| Sept. 6 |  Grambling State Tigers | Ohio Stadium |  | W, 46-6 |
| Sept. 13 |  Ohio Bobcats | Ohio Stadium |  | W, 40-10 |
| Sept. 20 | BYE | |||
| Sept. 27 |  Washington Huskies | Husky Stadium | | W, 37-16 |
| Oct. 4 |  Minnesota Golden Gophers | Ohio Stadium |  | W, 53-22 |
| Oct. 11 |  Illinois Fighting Illini | Memorial Stadium | | W, 38-6 |
| Oct. 18 |  Wisconsin Badgers | Camp Randall | | W, 38-7 |
| Oct. 25 | BYE | |||
| Nov. 1 |  Penn State Nittany Lions | Ohio Stadium | | W, 31-13 |
| Nov. 8 |  Purdue Boilermakers | Ross-Ade Stadium | | W, 41-7 |
| Nov. 15 |  UCLA Bruins | Ohio Stadium | | W, 41-17 |
| Nov. 22 |  Rutgers Scarlet Knights | Ohio Stadium | | W, 61-3 |
| Nov. 29 |  Michigan Wolverines | Michigan Stadium | | W, 45-22 |
| Nov. 29 |  Indiana Hoosiers | Lucas-Oil Stadium | | W, 42-17 |
| Dec. 31 |  Miami Hurricanes | The Rose Bowl |  | 7:30 PM |
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ShireNiner
- Posts: 1375
- Joined: 29 Sep 2025, 10:06
The Scarlet and Gray
You might have to leave the board if you lose in real life and game to Miami.
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redsox907
- Posts: 6010
- Joined: 01 Jun 2025, 12:40
The Scarlet and Gray
can't fold after that article. boys gotta get it done, even if they gotta leave some Canes in body bags after