LGHL Reacts: Buckeye fans confident in future of OSU offense, not as much in defense

So, if you didn’t know, every week, the team over at SBNation Reacts sends out an email with survey questions about the goings on across the national college football landscape, and then when we here at LGHL are feeling frisky, we ask them to throw in some Ohio State specific questions as well; which we did this week.

If you would like to participate in future SBN Reacts surveys, GO HERE and sign up for the Ohio State portion of the emails!

As you likely know, over the past month, the Ohio State Buckeyes have started to get their mojo back after some bumps in the early season road this fall. But, that mojo has been regenerated against the likes of Tula, Rutgers, Maryland, and a very down Indiana team.

So, we wanted to know what our ever intelligent friends across Buckeye Nation thought about where the OSU offense and defense go from here, as Ohio State enters a stretch where they play No. 20 Penn State, a sneaky good pair of teams in Nebraska and Purdue, and then No. 8 Michigan State and No. 6 Michigan.

So, let’s see what the LGHL crowd thinks of the two different sides of the ball:

No surprise here, so far this season, the Ohio State offense is on an other-worldly trajectory. The Buckeyes are leading the country in points per game (49.3) and yards per game (559.3) and neither is particularly close. So, despite the fact that OSU is getting ready to face considerably better defenses over the last five weeks of the season, confidence remains high in C.J. Stroud and his absurd collection of weapons to keep humming straight into the postseason.

The result on the defensive side of the ball is both surprising and not. A) I’m not surprised that the confidence in the defense is not nearly as high of the offense. We all have eyes and memories, this isn’t shocking. But B), I’m kind of surprised at the result coming in at 79%, that’s pretty high given all of the bitching and moaning that we’ve seen across the interwebz about Kerry Coombs and the OSU defense this season.

Yes, the first team defense has been stifling over the past month, but I would have expected many fans to be in a wait-and-see mode until they play at least something approaching a competent offense. Perhaps the confidence comes in the fact that OSU won’t play anything approaching a competent offense until the College Football Playoff, and if so, that makes sense.

Now, as you can probably tell by the result, this question did not come from the LGHL-specific portion of the survey, instead the results for this next question come from responses from all college football fans — as do all of the remaining results.

See, I understand this one. About half of the country is stupid and can’t think for themselves, so all that they cling to is the fact that Oregon did in fact beat the Buckeyes in Columbus in Week 2 of the season. However, since then, Oregon has lost as well, and Ohio State is playing as well — if not better than — anyone else in the country. So, I fully believe that come Tuesday night when the College Football Playoff committee reveals its initial rankings, the Buckeyes will be ranked higher than the Ducks... as it should be.

This doesn’t matter, neither OU, nor TTUN are going to end the regular season undefeated. So, moving on.

I get that Cincinnati isn’t in a “Power 5” conference, but honestly, is Wake Forest?

Again, OU isn’t winning out, and neither is Sparty, but let’s pretend that we are in a different corner of the multiverse in which they both did, there is no doubt that Michigan State would deserve the bid, based on how they’ve looked, the teams that they would have needed to beat, and the fact that they didn’t almost lose to Kansas — that ish should be disqualifying all on its own.