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!
Last Saturday, the Ohio State Buckeyes beat the surly Penn State Nittany Lions in a hard fought 33-24 primetime contest. Normally a touchdown+ victory for the Buckeyes against the Nits is a strong result; however, coming just a week after PSU lost 20-18 in nine overtimes against the Illinois Fighting Illini, the relatively tight margin of victory had a number of Buckeye fans vocally concerned during and after the game.
So, in this week’s SB Nation Reacts survey, we asked LGHL readers and Ohio State fans what — if anything — the nine-point victory over James Franklin’s team did for their confidence level in the Buckeyes. Take a look to see what they thought.
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Half of the respondents claim to not have had any change in their feelings for the team, while a somewhat surprising 35% said it gave them more confidence, while the very vocal minority of 15% said that they were now less confident in Ohio State.
As the son of two Buckeyes who grew up in Central Ohio and graduated from Ohio State damn near 20 years ago, I rarely find myself surprised by the collective responses of Ohio State fans. Unfortunately, that’s not a good thing.
I think that I have become immune to the wildly ridiculous and emotional swings in the mood of the Buckeye Nation masses; I just expect it, and even though I generally zig when the loudest voices zag, everything is predictable. Whether it’s the wild overconfidence following games against garbage opponents or the Chicken Little sky is falling mentality when the team doesn’t win by 40, this is a story I’ve seen play out for my entire adult life.
So, when a small group of “fans” lose their shit and their sanity over a game, it is sometimes difficult to remember that their insufferably loud cynicism is not actually representative of the fanbase as a whole.
Now, I do want to say, that I’m not speaking necessarily of the entire 15% who said that the PSU game made them less confident; there could be very rationale people who came to that conclusion based on what they witnessed in the game. Instead, I’m talking about the asshats who attack the same players and coaches after a moderately tough game just one week after exaggeratedly praising them.
So I suppose this week’s survey results were a good reminder to ignore the loudest, most venomous voices in the fan base, because they are often angriest either for attention or because of something completely non-football or Ohio State related in the first place.
Alright, now that I have gotten off my soap box and exorcised that rant out of me, let’s take a look at the national SBN Reacts questions for the week.
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Going into the first College Football Playoff Rankings, I predicted that the order would be No. 1 Georgia, No. 2 Cincinnati, No. 3 Alabama, No. 4 Michigan State. Now, that’s not what I thought that it should be, just what I thought the committee would do.
If I was going to rank the teams, I would go No. 1 Georgia, No. 2 Michigan State, No. 3 Alabama No. 4 Ohio State. So, yeah, I guess I agree that they got the top four wrong.
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I love the Bearcats, and have predicted them to make the CFP the last two years, but they just aren’t anywhere close to be the most deserving at this point. Part of that is playing some bad teams close, part of that is some marquee wins ended up not being as impressive as we thought going in, and part of that is because they are in a Group of Five conference, so they are hamstrung by their schedule. But, I’d say Ohio State and Oklahoma are both more deserving at this point.
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Meh, the Ducks do have the best win of the teams in contention, but they also have the worst loss. So ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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And the other 33% of the votes was R.J. Young making fake emails to pad the stats.