Ohio State football needs to be more physical to get on Bama’s level

The Ohio State football program showed last season that they are chasing only one team, and that team is Alabama. They know what they need to do to get on their level.

Physicality. That’s something that the Ohio State football team had in 2020. They were more physical than the other team in every game they won last season. But there was one team that they weren’t more physical than and that was Alabama.

That’s why the Buckeyes got blown out in the National Championship. They simply weren’t physical enough on either side of the ball, especially on the line of scrimmage. Bama manhandled both sides of that fight and never let Ohio State get started because of it.

The Buckeyes are trying to close that gap. You can already see it with who they are recruiting now. Ryan Day realized that speed is great on the outside, but you have to match it with physicality on the inside. Being physical is also a mental state of mind too.

A large part of this offseason is going to be about getting his players to embrace that physicality. It’s also about getting his players stronger too. The defensive line in particular got pushed around in that National Championship Game. They need to be stronger in 2021.

We’ll get a good look early on whether or not the physicality is at another level in 2021. I’m also not saying it was bad in 2020. It just wasn’t at an elite level. That much was clear after that shellacking that Alabama laid on the Buckeyes.

Spring practice will give the Ohio State football team a chance to improve in all aspects of their game. Now that Spring is upon us, it’s exciting to see just how much they can get better. Of course, the position battles will be fun to watch too.