No. 10 Ohio State’s 41-28 loss to Oregon deals a fatal blow to its hopes of playing for the Big Ten crown, reaching the College Football Playoff and claiming the program’s second national championship in three seasons.
This was a surreal loss that showed the Buckeyes‘ increasingly narrow room for error. After taking a 14-0 lead and seeming on the verge of an impressive win against an opponent in the debut playoff rankings, their grip on the lead began to slip away after an Oregon fake punt in the second quarter.
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The Ducks dominated from there. By the midway mark of the third quarter, they’d reversed that deficit and taken a 17-point lead, causing a cascade of boos to rain down inside the Horseshoe.
Coming on the heels of a 30-18 loss to Southern California, Saturday’s performance shows that there is something very wrong with Ohio State that goes beyond just the injury to starting quarterback Julian Sayin.
It would be easy to point to the loss of a Heisman Trophy contender as the primary culprit behind this stunning fall from atop the US LBM Coaches Poll.
But this is where things are: Ohio State is now 6-5 since last December. This year’s team is already the program’s first since 2011 to lose more than twice.
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And the year’s not over yet.
Outside of that 2011 season, which saw the program led by an interim coach after Jim Tressel’s dismissal, Ohio State hasn’t lost four games in a year since 2004. That season was the last to feature back-to-back losses by double digits. Oregon was the first team since Wisconsin in 1999 to drop 38 points in a row on the Buckeyes.
The issues seem to go beyond one single injury. If not addressed this month, this recent slide could place coach Ryan Day back on the hot seat and set the table for a highly tumultuous offseason.
At a minimum, this swoon will lead to an offseason reevaluation of the Ohio State coaching staff.
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In the moment, Sayin’s absence has been the most obvious factor behind this two-game losing streak. His replacement, Luke Fahey, is not ready for this moment and has clearly been bumped into a major role ahead of schedule.
Fahey completed 21 of 38 attempts for 280 yards against the Trojans and 36 of 50 for 360 yards, two touchdowns and an interception against the Ducks, though much of his success came after the Buckeyes were down 24 points in the fourth quarter.
There’s still no excuse for failing to find ways to get the ball to superstar wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, who went nearly two full quarters without touching the ball and finished with 133 receiving yards with most of the damage and a meaningless touchdown in garbage time.
There’s no excuse for failing to pull down two pretty easy interceptions in the first half, including one that could’ve been returned for a pick-six and put the game on ice before the Ducks had a chance to breathe.
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And given the program’s immense resources and financial allotment to building this roster, there’s no excuse for falling apart at the seams at a time when the top national contenders are rounding into form.
After this third loss, Ohio State’s path to the playoff will require an absurd amount of chaos in the Big Ten and SEC. Already No. 12 in the debut playoff rankings, the Buckeyes will be in the back end of this week’s Top 25 and well off the pace set by Big Ten frontrunners Indiana and UCLA.
They’ll also be behind Oregon, which was No. 23 in the debut Top 25 and is suddenly very much alive in the playoff hunt despite losing its own starting quarterback, Dante Moore, back in September.
There is also virtually no path to the conference championship game. The Buckeyes are now two games behind unbeaten UCLA, a game back of the second-place Indiana and a half-game back of USC and Oregon because of head-to-head tiebreakers.
This season is over. Where does Ohio State go from here?
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ohio State sees CFP bubble burst with humbling home loss to Oregon
