Ohio State Football: Is the Sugar Bowl a must win to be considered elite?
By Coop Ledford
For the second straight year, the Ohio State football team will play the Clemson Tigers in the College Football Playoff Semifinal. Last year the Tigers handed the Buckeyes a heartbreaking 29-23 loss, the Buckeyes look to avenge their loss but also cement themselves in the top tier of College Football.
When you think about the current top tier of college football teams, Alabama immediately comes to mind. The Crimson Tide have won five National Championships since 2009, have been ranked #1 in the CFP Poll more than every other team combined, and have been in the College Football Playoff all but one year.
After Bama, one would probably think of Clemson. Dabo Swinney and the Tigers have had unbelievable success, appearing in four of the last five National Championship games, winning two (2016 and 2018).
Alabama and Clemson are perhaps in a tier of their own when it comes to the very elite programs in college football. The two teams met in three National Championships from 2015-2018.
Ohio State is not far off from being in that tier. If Bama and Clemson are tier one, Ohio State is at the very top of tier two, and perhaps a win away from entering tier one. The Buckeyes of course beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl and went on to win the National Championship in 2014. Since ’14 Ohio State has made the playoff twice, in which both times they suffered a Fiesta Bowl loss to Clemson.
This will now be Ohio State’s fourth appearance in the College Football Playoff in its seven-year existence, trailing only two teams for the most appearances; Alabama and Clemson. Most programs would kill to appear in four playoffs, but Ryan Day and the Buckeyes don’t play just to make the playoff, they play for national titles.
Ohio State has never beaten Clemson, all four of their meetings have come in the postseason and ended in heartbreak one-way-or-another for Ohio State. From Woody Hayes punching a Clemson player to a heartbreaking 2014 Orange Bowl loss, a 31-0 blowout in the 2016 Fiesta Bowl, and then perhaps the most haunting game in recent Ohio State football history in the 2019 Fiesta Bowl.
Next. 3 predictions for the Sugar Bowl. dark
A win over Clemson would not only avenge Ryan Day’s only loss as a head coach but would also perhaps put Ohio State in the same tier as the two teams above them. That would set-up a National Championship meeting with the Crimson Tide, a win in that game would undoubtedly put Ohio State football in the same tier.