What a difference a week makes. On our last show, we spent a good deal of time venting about Ohio State’s loss to Michigan, criticizing the decisions we thought led to it, and thinking that all that remained in the season was a meaningless exhibition game in which a bunch of starters sat out to focus on the 2023 NFL Draft.

But all of that changed on Friday when USC got pounded by Utah and led to Sunday’s announcement that the Buckeyes are going to the College Football Playoff to face Georgia in the Peach Bowl on New Year’s Eve. On this week’s show, we discussed the emotional sea change from last week to this and discuss the games that ended up falling the Buckeyes’ way. We also touched on the whining we saw on social media from supposedly neutral national college football pundits and how ultimately the committee picked the four teams that made the most sense.

The game against Georgia is anything but a reward for Ohio State as the Bulldogs have looked like the cream of the crop all season. But David can’t slay Goliath without any stones for his sling and now Ohio State has one. We’ll find out how they use that stone on Dec. 31.

The big question on everyone’s mind once the Buckeyes were in was whether Jaxon Smith-Njigba would be healthy and on the field for the playoff. That is not the case and we discussed both JSN’s public statement, in which he clearly mentions consulting with his doctors, and what was an ugly reaction from many who either somehow know more about his medical file than he does, or else they just like questioning the character of people they don’t know. Either way, it was gross.

Ohio State’s coaching staff will have some changes either before or shortly after the College Football Playoff, with the news that (as of this writing) Kevin Wilson is all but officially announced as the next head coach at Tulsa. Will he stay at Ohio State through the playoff or focus on trying to keep Tulsa’s recruiting class together between now and then? What’s best for the Buckeyes? Who will the next offensive coordinator be and how does Ryan Day’s insistence on controlling the play calling affect that? These are the questions we wrestled with this week.

C.J. Stroud is a Heisman Trophy finalist and we discussed his season as well as the other contenders to make some sense of what will happen at the Downtown Athletic Club.

Finally, some transfer portal news that is OSU-related came out on a crazy day that saw hundreds of athletes enter in search of greener pastures. How much of it was NIL-driven and how much is it just guys trying to find a better situation? Either way, that’s a lot of names and several of them are multi-year starting quarterbacks.

We’ll be back next week to talk about whatever news comes out of what is sure to be an interesting December. We’ll be getting ready for the Georgia showdown and taking a look at the other B1G bowl match-ups as well.

In the meantime, feel free to reach out with your feedback and questions below in the comments section or send us an email. Be sure to subscribe, rate, review, and share.

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