2021 is the weirdest Ohio State Football season ever
By Ryan Stano
The 2021 season is finally over for the Ohio State football team. With the Rose Bowl over, they can focus their efforts on 2022 and move forward. This team will be moving on from perhaps the weirdest football season in program history for a myriad of reasons.
On the field, the Buckeyes had a weird arc. They lost their first home game of the season to the only good team they played for the first month of the season. Fans were calling for the defensive coordinator to get fired just two games into the season. Kerry Coombs got demoted, and Matt Barnes took over.
Then, in the middle of the season, the Buckeyes had a linebacker quit the team at halftime and tweet some crazy things about the team. K’Vaughan Pope decided to just leave and tweet as soon as he got to the locker room. He just now resurfaced with more tweets as well.
Then the Buckeyes looked like they were peaking at the right time. They had just beaten #7 Michigan State right before they were going to take on TTUN for the first time in two years. Then, they look soft and lose to TTUN for the first time since 2011.
That would all be plenty crazy enough for a season, but that wasn’t everything. Ryan Day hires a new defensive coordinator and then makes the decision to not have him not involved in the game-planning for the Rose Bowl. The Rose Bowl ends up being a game for the ages, but more people talk about what happened off the field while the game was going on.
Marcus Williamson decides to not make the trip for the game and tweets some allegations at Urban Meyer. Then, former players come out and say what he alleges wasn’t true, all during the course of the Rose Bowl. The Buckeyes end up winning one of the best bowl games in recent memory.
After the game is done, Matt Barnes leaves the team the next day to go to Memphis. That was the final move in what was an insane 2021 season. No other Ohio State football season in my lifetime has had as many up and downs and tweeting scandals like this one.
Hopefully, 2022 is a little less crazy for the Buckeyes. I’d like to see next season be a little more normal both on and off the field.