There is a cognitive bias known as the curse of knowledge, which says that the more you know about something, the more difficult it is to view it and appreciate it as an outsider would. Because of how
close you are to the subject, not only do you notice its imperfections more than an unbiased observer would, but they also weigh more heavily on your perception, leading to a harsher judgment than that of the vast majority of less informed, and therefore less critical, observers.
If the world has ever known a group of people who suffer from a curse of knowledge that robs them of objectivity more than Ohio State football fans, I hope I never become a member of that group. Whether you are like Paul Finebaum, who is really taking it out on Ohio State fans that the SEC isn’t the center of the college football world anymore, or you just prefer to call hyperaware fans the “lunatic fringe,” you know what I’m talking about. We see the blemishes and weaknesses in the Buckeyes long before anyone else does, and recognizing those limitations makes us far more angery and scared than any seemingly sane person should be over a game played by 18 to 23-year-olds.
If we can all agree that this reverse familiarity bias is par for the course for Buckeye fans, then, for the enjoyment of us all, I hope that the current climate of college football helps cure us of our insistence on obsessively fixating on the negative, when there is not only so much good we could focus on instead, but, more importantly, when we have it so much better than nearly every other fanbase in the country.
Now, this is, of course, not to say that we shouldn’t acknowledge and discuss Ohio State’s continued issues in the running game and throwing the ball downfield, looking even semi-competent in multiple aspects of special teams, and more, but did you see what happened to Penn State, Florida State, Oregon, and Michigan yesterday, not to mention countless other “top” teams that could have (and some that should have) lost to lesser teams?
Ohio State remains the best team — and the best program — in all of college football, and while Ryan Day’s squad is far from a perfected product, when compared to the competition across the country, they are pretty darn impressive. I think many of us, myself included, fondly recall a day when OSU and other top teams would routinely look perfect from start to finish against all levels of competition, winning 70-0 in eight out of 12 regular-season games, cruising into bowl season, looking like they could challenge for a Super Bowl title, let alone a conference or college football crown.
The problem is, those days never existed. Despite our rosy retrospection, every great team of the past, Buckeye or otherwise, had issues and imperfections. I wasn’t around in 1968, but I am sure that there was a subset of Ohio State fans who nitpicked Woody Hayes’ Super Sophs. And even if they were too afraid to do so publicly, because of the threat of Coach Hayes showing up at their homes and punching them in the face, there is no doubt in my mind that they existed. It is the nature of caring about something. We are predisposed to recognize the less-than-ideal aspects of our closest friends and family far more than those who only casually see them once or twice a year. The key is whether or not we let those flaws supersede all of the wonderful things about those individuals that made us love them in the first place, and continue to love them each and every year.
I admit that I have fallen victim to this toxic type of thinking in the past, but as I’ve gotten older (and in no small part thanks to the national title last season), I’ve come to recognize that, for me, this type of approach to the team and sport that I passionately love isn’t constructive or enjoyable. While sure, deluding myself that I can diagnose the deficiencies of a team in a sport that I barely played better than the multi-million dollar staff of elite-level coaches allowed me to puff my chest out a little bit, but it wasn’t fun, and what is the point of watching sports (or anything, really) if you aren’t enjoying it?
Over the past season and a half, we have seen that Ohio State head coach Ryan Day has changed his philosophy of program management in the era of the 12-team College Football Playoff. Gone is the need to build up style points; here is the need to keep players healthy for the long haul. Gone is trying to achieve a finished product by mid-season; here is a regimented plan to gradually prepare his team for the postseason.
While that can certainly be frustrating for fans to watch, it has been proven successful, not only with the national title run last season, but in the fact that the Buckeyes are 6-0 in a season in which nearly every other preseason contender has lost at least once.
Eight of the preseason top-10 teams already have losses, and half of those have multiple losses. In fact, only four teams in the initial top-20, and only six in the preseason top-25, are still undefeated, and our team is one of them, so that deserves to be celebrated, especially in this new version of college football that we live in.
With the transfer portal and NIL payments leveling the playing field across the sport, it stands to reason that the nostalgic dominance of bygone eras is no more (even if it was never actually real to begin with). Top-tier teams are a little worse, and mid-tier teams are a little better, meaning that any and all perceived title contenders could be upset on any given Saturday, or three-straight Saturdays if you’re Penn State.
I’m not asking fans (or myself) to ignore the Buckeyes’ vulnerabilities, but instead to place them in the proper context of the team’s performance and the college football season at large. Like you, I watch a lot of college football games every single week, and I’ve been saying for weeks that I’m just not sure that there are any great teams out there this season, OSU included. But what I do know is that despite this curse of knowledge that I have about the Buckeye team, they are better than anyone else out there.
While I am sure it is easier for some of us (and especially the national media) to give No. 8 Alabama more credit for beating No. 14 Missouri 27-24 (or No. 10 Georgia for beating unranked Auburn 20-10, or No. 12 Tennessee for beating unranked Arkansas 34-31, or No. 5 Texas A&M for beating unranked Florida 34-17) than Ohio State for beating No. 17 Illinois 34-16, it shouldn’t be. The Buckeyes played a better game and beat a better team, and as fans, we shouldn’t allow the existential dread that a spotty running game, pedestrian play calling, and sloppy special teams induce blind us to that fact.
In a land where everyone loses, the team that keeps winning is king. So while every fan should have a certain level of objectivity when it comes to what their favorite team does and does not do well, we shouldn’t let that rob us of the joy that winning provides, especially since the Buckeyes keep winning, and therefore continue to be the kings of college football.
