Ohio State Football: How opt-outs will affect OSU in the Rose Bowl

The Ohio State football team looked for a while like they weren’t going to have to deal with a bunch of opt-outs for the Rose Bowl. It took until the week of the game for that to change, as now the Buckeyes have to deal with a whole lot of opt-outs for this game.

Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson, Nicholas Petit-Frere, and Haskell Garrett will all sit out the Rose Bowl. All have decided to declare for the 2022 NFL Draft and don’t want to risk injury for that process. Now, the Buckeyes are suddenly in a pickle for the final game of the season.

C.J. Stroud will be without his two top receivers in Olave and Wilson. Olave’s opt-out is especially surprising since he had been practicing all weekend. Now with him gone, that leaves Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Julian Fleming as the top two receivers for Saturday against the Utes.

Expect Marvin Harrison Jr. to also get a lot of playing time for the game as well. Jeremy Ruckert will need to be involved heavily in the passing game as well. The offensive line isn’t quite as affected by this because Thayer Munford can just swing back out to tackle and Matthew Jones can play guard.

The big question is this: can the Ohio State football team will beat Utah without all of these players? I’ve got to be honest, I’m not so sure anymore. I need to finish watching film before the game to make my final decision on whether or not the Buckeyes can pull it out.

If Ohio State does win, it would be a great coaching job by Ryan Day and his staff. It was going to be hard enough to beat a motivated Utah team with all of their players. Now, that task becomes infinitely tougher without four of their best guys.

We’ll have to see if the rest of the team’s depth can come together to win this game.