For the last few weeks, as playoff rankings came out, as I looked at other top teams, I found myself thinking “Alabama is playing the best football.” I thought about the prospect of Ohio State having a rematch with the Crimson Tide and thought “I don’t think this team can beat them, not the way Derrick Henry runs.” Because Ohio State has been awful on the run defense this year. We saw it again on Saturday, against what’s a fairly average running game in Michigan State, playing power football, they were able to dominant Ohio State up front.
Throughout these underwhelming losses, we would hear “well we have a great defense.” But Buckeye fans can compare to previous teams. 1996. 1998. 2002. 2005. Those were great defenses. This was a good pass defense that struggled to tackle powerful running backs. And they never really improved on that.
