I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but the No. 1 Ohio State Buckeyes have been remarkably healthy this season. No one has suffered a catastrophic injury, we haven’t seen anyone carted off the field, and the availability report hasn’t been riddled with high-profile names week in and week out (and yes, I am knocking on wood while I type this).
However, in the past two games, the Buckeyes have suffered through mounting injuries on the offensive line and in the wide receiver corps. Now, we don’t
know if Josh Padilla or Carnell Tate would have been able to play if this week’s game were a postseason matchup instead of being against 3-6 UCLA, or if Jeremiah Smith would have given it a go in the second half if the game were close and not one that ended as a 48-10 blowout. But, with just one game left before Ohio State’s unofficial postseason starts, it’s time to exercise extreme amounts of caution for the next 13 days.
Next Saturday, the top-ranked Buckeyes will welcome the 5-5 Rutgers Scarlet Knights to Ohio Stadium. The penultimate game of the regular season will serve as Senior Day for OSU, but south of the Mason-Dixon line, next Saturday is an observable holiday across SEC Country known as Cupcake Weekend.
While there will be a few conference matchups on the schedule, many SEC teams will use the week to rest and get healthy by playing low-level Group of 5 and FCS teams before turning the page to Rivalry Week. Texas A&M will follow up its near defeat to South Carolina by hosting Samford. Georgia will ride the momentum of beating Texas by welcoming Charlotte to Sanford Stadium. Alabama will look to rebound following its loss to OU by hosting Eastern Illinois. Auburn will play Mercer, South Carolina will play Coastal, and LSU will welcome Western Kentucky.
While many level-headed college football observers will concede that this practice is an affront to all things that are good and equitable in the sport, it is hard to argue against its effectiveness. After a brutal fall, every program is dealing with injuries large and small. So, before playing their biggest rivals, SEC teams take advantage of a long-held tradition of playing a mediocre opponent before the regular season finale and the postseason.
While The Game looms large as the unofficial start of Ohio State’s postseason, the Buckeyes do not have the ridiculous benefit of playing a non-conference buy game the weekend before heading to Ann Arbor to face Michigan. Instead, they will host a scrappy Rutgers squad coached by the always tough Greg Schiano.
Despite that difference, Ryan Day and the Buckeyes need to use next weekend’s game the same way that SEC teams will. And while Rutgers is far from a Cupcake, OSU’s game plan needs to treat them as if they are. Any Buckeye who is not 85% healthy or better needs to be in street clothes, and any player in the Tate, Smith, Sayin, Downs, Reese, Styles tier of the team who is not 90% healthy needs to take the week off as well.
I know this might appear disrespectful to Rutgers, and Day does not like embarrassing anyone, let alone a friend and mentor like Schiano, but in an era where style points don’t matter, who cares if Ohio State wins a wonky clunker if a handful or two of its two-deep members are out? Hell, while people will clearly care if OSU were to lose to Rutgers, it really wouldn’t change anything about their season. It could potentially lead to losing a tiebreaker with Oregon to make the Big Ten Title Game (although that is not the most likely possibility), but ultimately, it wouldn’t impact the Buckeyes’ ability to win a national title whatsoever.
But with Michigan awaiting on Nov. 29, Day needs his team as close to 100% as he can possibly get them. So, if there is even a shadow of doubt over a contributor’s health, sit them. Even if they could reasonably play, I would rather they be ready to go for a Bloody Tuesday practice of Michigan Week than play in an essentially meaningless game on Saturday vs. Rutgers.
And for the guys that do play against Rutgers, get the first teamers out as quickly as possible, perhaps with the one exception being the offensive line, which still needs to gel in whatever configuration the coaching staff settles on.
Plan on Julian Sayin to play three or four series before giving way to Lincoln Kienholtz, and if things go well, let Tavien St. Clair play the entire fourth quarter. Get Arvell Reese, Caleb Downs, Davison Igbinosun, Sonny Styles, Caden Currey, Kayden McDonald, et al. out of the game as quickly as possible. If you need to put them back in, that’s fine, but minimize the opportunities that they could get hurt and minimize the opportunities for them to expend more energy than they have to.
Ohio State is the best team in college football, in no small part due to the fact that it has the best roster in college football. So, as they head into the postseason (official or otherwise), the best way for them to bring a second-straight national championship back to Columbus is to have as many players as possible as close to 100% as they can be for the stretch run. If that means adopting one of the worst habits of SEC football for a week and treating Rutgers like a cupcake, so be it.
