As the Rose Bowl draws nearer, dominoes are continuing to fall that could shape next year’s Ohio State roster.

There’s still one last order of business for Ohio State to take care of in the 2021 season, and that’s beating Utah in the Rose Bowl. While we’ll dig deeper into the matchup with Utah on next week’s episode of Real Pod Wednesdays after we arrive in Los Angeles, we begin this week’s episode by talking about some of the biggest storylines that were discussed by more than a dozen players during Ohio State’s on-campus Rose Bowl media day last week.

The matchup with Utah is an intriguing one on paper, as the Utes play a similar brand of football to Michigan, and that gives the Buckeyes all the more reason to be motivated to make a statement in Pasadena. Will be that enough to carry Ohio State to a victory, though, in a game where the Buckeyes could still potentially be without key players due to opt-outs? We start this week’s show by discussing the Rose Bowl matchup and our biggest takeaways from last week’s interviews.

Last week also brought news that will be relevant to next year’s roster, as 18 high school players signed with Ohio State’s recruiting class of 2022 while Cameron Brown announced he’ll be back at Ohio State for the 2022 season. We discuss the impact of Brown’s return for the cornerback room (11:41), the ongoing NFL draft decisions that Zach Harrison and Dawand Jones still have to make (20:20) and what needs Ohio State still needs to fill on its 2022 roster after the early signing period (26:25).

Ohio State has also lost five players to the transfer portal since the end of the regular season, but we discuss why we don’t think those transfers are anything to panic about (32:57). Ohio State fans have also expressed some angst over how other schools appear to be using name, image and likeness deals to their advantage, but Dan explains (41:54) why Ryan Day’s answer that Ohio State “cannot” set up NIL deals for recruits was the only way he could answer that question.

The past week also brought some bad news on the Ohio State men’s basketball front, as the Buckeyes were forced to cancel two consecutive games due to positive COVID-19 tests within the program. We discuss (48:56) how that could stall the Buckeyes’ momentum and why the Buckeyes can still feel good about what they were able to accomplish in non-conference play, and also discuss the potential impact that COVID-19 could have – though we sincerely hope it doesn’t – on the Rose Bowl (52:43).

We also share our thoughts (56:10) on Urban Meyer’s disastrous tenure as Jacksonville Jaguars head coach and why Dan believes that will lead to Meyer returning to coach college football – though not at Ohio State. Plus, we discuss what Gabe Powers and Sonny Styles’ roles on the Buckeye defense could be (1:00:30) and why we’re looking forward to next week’s trip to Los Angeles (1:03:25).