How the Ohio State Buckeyes Disrupted the Alabama-Clemson Narrative

Like many of you, I went into last weekend assuming we’d see the usual suspects in the College Football Playoff national championship game. Once I watched Nick Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide steamroll Notre Dame this past weekend in the Rose Bowl and advance out of the semifinals, I couldn’t block out the deja vu sentiments of an Alabama versus Clemson matchup taking place in the national title game for the fourth time in six years.

In fact, before Clemson had even kicked off their semifinal game in the Sugar Bowl showdown against the Ohio State Buckeyes, I’d already started reminiscing about ways to compare Alabama and Clemson to other sports that have witnessed teams become annual staples on the championship stage. But before I could fully sift through my contact list for members of those legendary Celtics versus Lakers NBA battles, an Ohio State team that had been limited to just five regular-season games, put 35 points on the scoreboard in the first half against Clemson. This is an Ohio State team that had its season ended the previous year by Clemson in an embarrassing fashion. In 2019, Clemson scored 29 of the final 36 points of the Fiesta Bowl, advancing to the title game against LSU.

While I was preparing to write that narrative once again, clearly the Buckeyes were intent on flipping the “script.” What do you do after a tough year? How do you bounce back from failure? Do you worry about the same outcome, or do you rewrite it with the lessons learned?

So much of this year’s championship debate was driven around the Buckeyes not belonging in the College Football Playoff—let alone not stacking up to Dabo Swinney’s Clemson team that surely had calendar appointments for a fifth championship game appearance in the last six years.

While others had accepted the narrative, head coach Ryan Day and the Buckeyes were re-writing it. They were intent on proving people wrong and righting all that went wrong the previous season. And the Buckeyes, for the most part, stayed out of the typical war of words that accompany many of college football’s season-ending showdowns. While there was a shortage of bulletin board material that Ohio State gave Clemson, Coach Swinney and the Tigers presented a slew of article clippings and soundbites to remind OSU of the scenario they were up against.

It’s evident that OSU did a better job of filtering the noise in a way that made them laser-focused on the task at hand. For weeks, OSU heard praises from the Big Ten and dismissals from the rest of the college football landscape. During that same span, Clemson heard how good a team they were, how smart a coach Dabo was, and how prolific its Heisman hopeful quarterback Trevor Lawrence was. Almost as dangerous as reading your own clippings when things are going well is the self-inflicted wounds of concentrating on what is being said about you when things haven’t gone well.

That’s a lesson taught to me in a brief exchange with my father back in my college days after bringing home rave reviews and kind remarks about my work. I was excited that someone was so impressed by my writing, that they sent a letter to the editor of the school paper to give kudos. With my chest filled with pride, I made sure my parents read it. My mother overflowed with the warm congratulatory celebration I had envisioned when I clipped the article. Anticipating a similar reaction from my father, I turned to him and was humbled by his response.

“Be careful, Don,” he said in a stern voice. “Be careful because if you want to believe all the good things they say about you now, you’re going to have to believe all the bad things they say about you, also.”

I wasn’t ready to hear that then, but it’s a perspective we all should factor into the highs and lows of our professional lives. Only you will know what you are and who you are. Only you will know how good you are and how much you still need to grow. It’s best to learn from the good and the bad that’s said about you while not being overly affected by either. It appears that’s how Ryan Day and OSU have managed this unusual year.

The Ohio State Buckeyes knew that they weren’t the team that squandered a 16-point lead in 2019 to Clemson. They knew they could re-write the narrative that had already begun discrediting their season and their right to sit at the championship table. They also knew the blind support of Buckeye Nation wasn’t going to make any game-saving tackles for them when it mattered most.

Many of us had a rough 2020 that pushed us to our limits. Many faced the toughest times financially, professionally, and emotionally. Last year’s struggle can easily factor into this year’s effort if you allow it. Remember that you can’t change the narrative until you make the effort to change the narrative.

For OSU, the next storyline involves top-ranked Alabama and its Heisman Trophy-winning playmaker DeVonta Smith. The natural inclination is to side with the Tide, but considering how the Buckeyes have muffled the doubts, lowered the volume from arrogance to confidence, and made this year one to remember, I won’t dare write the ending, yet.