Why is this news?: Jim Tressel's resignation may have saved Ohio State's football program

"Ohio State absorbed the blow of Tressel's NCAA transgressions and recovered, while Texas slowly bled out during Brown's final four seasons, with second-year coach Charlie Strong still in surgery to save the program."

- Doug Lesmerises, Northeast Ohio Media Group

Ohio State and Texas are arguably two of the best and most storied football programs in college, but the Buckeyes could have faced the same turmoil as the Longhorns over the past few seasons, had it not been for Jim Tressel resigning.

The Texas football administration is falling apart each week; coming off a losing season at 6-7, along with having an Athletic Director that didn't seem to understand the organization's culture, the Longhorns lost Week 1 against Notre Dame and again against Cal in Week 3.

When Ohio State faced Texas in 2005 and 2006 during the home-and-home series, the Longhorns were led by head coach Mack Brown. Tressel recalls his departure from Ohio State and the resulting program changes as abrupt, compared to that of Brown with Texas which was far more of a slow downgrade.

Given the current state of the Buckeyes, one can argue that Tressel at least left the program in good shape to move forward and be successful -- as they've done under the Meyer era. With the upheaval currently playing out in Texas, Brown's legacy doesn't seem to be working out the same way as Tressel's.

"...2015 Ohio State appears to be yet another ostensibly loaded defending national champ that, it turns out, has issues just like everyone else."

- Stewart Mandel, FOX Sports

Buckeye fans don't always embrace being the preseason number one, especially when the expectations seem impossibly high. The team hasn't flourished in that position before -- finished number two in 2006 -- and it looks to be giving them some trouble again this season.

Being underestimated is motivation for players, but in this case, the reigning national champions may have been overestimated -- at least in the early goings. 2015 was always supposed to be the year that everything Meyer has been building would come together, but the early returns haven't been as positive as hoped.

It starts with the quarterback position, but doesn't end there, and with teams breathing down their backs, finishing the season at number one is seeming more and more improbable. Other top teams have struggled early this year too, but other, lower-ranked teams, are starting to jump ahead in the polls with each impressive win.

There has only been one team since 2000 to start and finish the season ranked number one, USC in 2004. Only time will tell if the Buckeyes can be the second team to accomplish such a daunting task.

"Cardale Jones has actually been a less than 50 percent passer when you take jet sweeps out of the equation."

- Bill Landis, Northeast Ohio Media Group

If you break down the stats of both Cardale Jones and J.T. Barrett so far this season, they're, well, not great.

Urban Meyer mentioned during his radio call-in show last week, that the team doesn't include jet sweeps in the quarterback's passing statistics. These short five-inch tosses are instead counted as rushes to avoid inflating the numbers with a flick of the wrist. Bill Landis of Cleveland.com broke it down well:

The offense has struggled to gain momentum under each quarterback; the jet sweeps are keeping the stats in a better place, but without an offensive line to make holes and capitalize on these plays, they're for naught.

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