Ohio State Football: 3 OSU legacies affected by TTUN cheating
By Ryan Stano
The Ohio State football team dominated Michigan for the first five years that Jim Harbaugh coached the team. He was winless against the Buckeyes and couldn’t find a way to beat them. Apparently, the only way he thought he could do so was by cheating.
The Big Ten disciplined Harbaugh for the elaborate sign-stealing scandal that has taken place over the past two-plus seasons. TTUN has beaten the Buckeyes in the last two seasons. Coincidence? I think not. Ohio State was clearly the dominant team in the rivalry and then all of a sudden TTUN blows them out two years in a row? Suspicious.
There were several legacies that were affected by the cheating scandals on Ohio State’s side of things. There were players and coaches who were chided for not beating the Wolverines in each of the last two seasons. How they are remembered by fans was affected by the cheating scandal.
There are three Ohio State football members who were most affected by the cheating scandal. Without the sign-stealing, who knows if Ohio State would have lost those games? We’ll never know. But the number one player who was affected was C.J. Stroud.
1. C.J. Stroud
No player was more affected than former Buckeye quarterback C.J. Stroud. Stroud was chastised by Ohio State football fans for going 0-2 as a starter against Michigan. Buckeye fans called him a loser in big games after falling to TTUN in consecutive years and also losing to Georgia.
Stroud didn’t have his best game against Michigan in either matchup. But now that we know Michigan was stealing Ohio State’s signals, can we blame him? They knew every play that the Ohio State Buckeyes were going to run when he was on the field.
There’s no way that Stroud would have been able to overcome the extreme advantage that Mixhigan’s defense had over him and the rest of the offense. It would be hard for Stroud to throw for a lot of yards and lead the team on touchdown-scoring drives if Michigan knew what was coming.
Ohio State football fans should re-visit how Stroud is remembered, especially with how he’s doing in the NFL right now. He had just one true bad game where there wasn’t cheating going on and that was against Oregon in Stroud’s second-ever start.
The next Ohio State football member whose legacy is most affected by this cheating is the current head coach.