Ohio State football: Marquee matchup with Oregon will have to wait

Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic that has been happening around the world, it was announced that the season September 12th Ohio State vs Oregon game at Autzen Stadium would not happen as the Big Ten is only going to have conference games.

This is a bummer for both schools as each has been hyped up to have a good season, and that this game would have been probably the host to ESPN’s College Gameday. The last time both the Buckeyes and the Ducks played each other was during the inaugural College Football Playoff National Championship during the 2014-15 season when the Buckeyes won 42-20 with Ezekiel Elliott, Cardale Jones, Michael Thomas, Joey Bosa, and more key players.

Last year, the Buckeyes went undefeated during the regular season, before losing to Clemson in the first round of the CFB playoffs by a final of 29-23. Oregon meanwhile was just games away from being in the playoffs if they never lost in an upset to Arizona State 31-28. Ohio State leads an undefeated record of 9 and 0 against the Ducks, dating back to New Years Day of 1958.

While the Big Ten is now doing only conference matchups, a lot of fans would not be surprised if the PAC 12 follows suit of them and the ACC. Especially now that even the Ivy League has canceled fall sports. Few other non-conference games that were also canceled that the Buckeyes were supposed to play this year was the season opener against Bowling Green and the week three matchup against Buffalo. As of today, the PAC 12 will also have only conference games.

The COVID/College Football Situation

The biggest thing now is with the three non-conference games canceled, will the schedule get harder for the Buckeyes? In my opinion, it may, since this is not the same team from last year, and that every game is unpredictable from the beginning. The next question that has been asked is if there would be Ohio State or even any sort of college football in the spring? By the looks of it, that will not happen for most schools, and if the NCAA decided to do that, it would backfire.

The reason for the backfire is because of how the second wave will maybe hit during January and that if football was played in the spring and say a star player like Justin Fields would get hurt, then he would not have the chance to probably perform at the combine.

With this whole year being confusing, we will have to see what teams in the Big Ten replace Bowling Green, Buffalo, and Oregon, or if the games will be pushed back? We will have to see what happens and if we will even have college football during the fall.