Ryan Day's Ohio State Buckeyes are being revered as an inevitability, one that's set to crush Curt Cignetti's upstart Indiana Hoosiers when the time comes in the Big Ten Championship, in the College Football Playoff, or both.
USA Today's Blake Toppmeyer spoke of Ohio State as the Nick Saban-era Alabama Crimson Tide were discussed during the dynastic years from 2009 to 2021; dismissive of the Indiana Hoosiers as a true threat to the Buckeyes' dominance following favorable results for OSU, and not so much for IU in Week 11.
The Buckeyes handled the Purdue Boilermakers 34-10 in West Lafayette, Indiana. The Hoosiers barely beat the Penn State Nittany Lions 27-24 in Happy Valley.
"With wayward Wisconsin and woebegone Purdue left on the schedule, the Hoosiers are going to march into the Big Ten championship with an undefeated record and a shot at the playoffs’ No. 1 seed," Toppmeyer wrote.
"And I still can’t decide whether this is a team of destiny or an incredible dose of window dressing before the inevitable — Ohio State repeating as national champions — takes hold in the postseason.
"That’s the big, unanswered question looming over this season. Is this all one incredible thrill ride of distraction before a soul-sucking march to glory by Ohio State?"
Does NIL level the playing field in college football?
Saban coached until the end of the 2023 season, but his dominance over the sport was done in 2021, when an unranked TAMU Aggies team upset his program in College Station, Texas. There was an SEC power that beat them for the title that year and took the mantle as the cream of the crop with a second national championship the following year: Kirby Smart's Georgia Bulldogs.
Which brings us back to the present day: could Cignetti be to Day what Smart was to Saban in his final years?
NIL could be the difference-maker. In several different ways.
It could be the difference-maker that bridges the gap between IU and OSU, or it could be something that Day has mastered like Saban did pre-NIL.
Or a Buckeyes-Hoosiers matchup could come down to one play, and all of this dialogue would be rendered moot.
Either way, it's tough to conceptualize if Day can be the new overlord like Saban was until December and January. But seeing these narratives must be a good feeling for Buckeye Nation.