The Ohio State Buckeyes are being disrespected. There's a narrative spreading that OSU failed its one big test by losing 13-10 to the Indiana Hoosiers in the Big Ten Championship Game and are easy pickings for the Georgia Bulldogs in the College Football Playoff semifinals, but that ignores necessary context: the Texas Longhorns' context.
Let's not forget that the Longhorns entered Week 1 as the nation's No. 1 overall team before taking a 14-7 loss at the "Shoe" to the defending champs. The No. 3 Buckeyes only became a slight favorite in that matchup in the days before.
Texas was one flipped result against the Florida Gators away from being in the College Football Playoff. There'd be a different story on OSU's B1G title game loss and their resume as a whole if the Longhorns had one more win.
People like to forget that, though. Bucknuts' Patrick Murphy doesn't forget.
Murphy pushed back against the idea that the Georgia Bulldogs have a cakewalk to the national championship game because Ohio State can't win any big games. He also stressed that Indiana owns the unbeaten aura only by the thinnest of Jayden Fielding margins, and that said aura could've been OSU's.
"The Buckeyes will hear about how impressive No. 1 Indiana is. There's already talk among some national media outlets about Georgia reaching the national championship game, believing the Scarlet and Gray failed their one major test (I guess Texas doesn't count anymore?) and therefore won't be able to beat the Bulldogs in the semifinal," Murphy wrote.
"That alone provides motivation, but the Ohio State players and coaches shouldn't need external noise to get ready."
"If the Buckeyes had won that game, they would be the undefeated No. 1 team. They would be the team everyone is talking about as the favorite."
Resume talk no longer matters in the CFP for Ohio State or anyone else
Truth be told, the time for talk is over. Unless it revolves around where Brian Hartline's head is at. The future is important. Not the past.
It's good that the Hoosiers got to feel legitimized right before the playoff, but it's all about rising to the occasion in the here and now. Before we talk about the Buckeyes and Bulldogs and who's won bigger games, they both need to defeat the TAMU Aggies or the Miami Hurricanes in the Cotton Bowl Classic, and the Ole Miss Rebels or the Tulane Green Wave in the Sugar Bowl, respectively.
No talk of records and accolades, or even past wins, matters now. It fills the time between meaningful football games, but there's a reason they play the games.
The resumes and seeds are locked in. There are no more hypothetical matchups the SEC can win. Now, they're real-life matchups with the greatest of stakes.