Ohio State football: Saban also disrespected Buckeyes

Dabo wasn’t the only head coach to disrespect the Ohio State football team. Nick Saban also showed some hate towards the Buckeyes in his final coaches poll.

The Ohio State football team was able to silence one critic in Dabo Swinney. He had Ohio State ranked 11th in his final coaches poll. We know that the Buckeyes used that for motivation for this game and used it to destroy his team 49-28. It wasn’t’ close.

Nick Saban is also a coach that showed some disrespect to the Buckeyes. He had Ohio State 5th in his final poll, not putting them in the top four. He instead opted to put Texas A&M at four instead of the Buckeyes. Saban wanted no part of the Buckeyes in the CFP.

As we know now, clearly Ohio State was the right team to put in that fourth spot after they killed Clemson in the Sugar Bowl. The disrespect from Dabo was clearly a big motivating factor for this team. I bet they can use Saban’s disrespect as a motivating factor as well.

How much that motivation will matter in this game remains to be seen. Bama is a better team than Clemson by a wide margin. Their offense hasn’t been stopped all season long. It is going to be a tough task for the Ohio State defense to keep Bama off the scoreboard.

But Bama’s defense is worse than Clemson’s. The Buckeyes put up 49 points on Clemson, so imagine what they can put on a worse Alabama defense. Whether or not this game is played on Monday remains to be seen, but the Buckeyes have the talent to compete.

This extra juice that Saban’s disrespect gives the Buckeyes might help push Ohio State over the edge for a Buckeye victory. We’ll have to see.