Ohio State looked like a different team during the Buckeyes' depressing 30-18 loss to USC on Halloween night than it looked all season prior.
Matt Patricia's defense had no teeth against Trojans quarterback Jayden Maiava, receiver Trent Mosley, tight end Mark Bowman, and the dynamic USC run game complementing them, led by running back King Miller.
Luke Fahey didn't look capable of filling in the shoes under center that Julian Sayin left with his potentially season-ending throwing-shoulder injury. He and Bo Jackson put up big numbers, but the dominance Jeremiah Smith displayed with Sayin probably won't be replicated by Fahey. Gone are JJ's Heisman hopes, more than likely.
Ryan Day's team didn't have the same fight as it did prior to the final frame in a 19-15 win over Indiana two weekends ago. Day blamed the team for not supporting Fahey enough in his first start on the road.
“At the end of the day, as a team, we weren’t able – to me – to play well enough to support a young freshman quarterback who was making his first start on the road," Day said to the media postgame.
Was it Day's smartest move to call out the team like that? Probably not. He understands how desperate the roster is now without Sayin, though. He's doing anything possible to get them excited to help Fahey. It didn't work on the last day of October.
It's as if a balloon filled with OSU's CFP hopes and dreams was popped at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Truthfully, it might have. College football's slate of games in Week 9 did the Buckeyes no favors, beyond the sloppy Scarlet and Gray loss in LA.
Oregon, Northwestern prove that November will be tough
Oregon and Northwestern battled in an entertaining 34-26 Ducks win at Autzen Stadium on Saturday during the afternoon slate. Both teams proved that they can hang in a shootout.
Oregon brings much-needed confidence to Columbus next weekend. Dylan Raiola put up 336 passing yards and three touchdown passes in the win, outgunning Aidan Chiles and Chip Kelly's Wildcats offense on the other side.
Northwestern, meanwhile, went and almost entered November with just one loss to the defending champions. David Braun's program is still in the CFP mix, so November 14 will be a high-stakes matchup at the "Shoe," more than likely.
Both of these teams showed out in Week 9, far more so than Ohio State.
While TTUN did little to convince anyone the Wolverines are a good team in a 28-21 win over Rutgers, and Nebraska fell hard at home to Washington, 17-10, half of the Buckeyes' November schedule looks like a meatgrinder.
All it takes is one loss to end OSU's CFP hopes.
Given what the 2026 Buckeyes look like right now in the post-Sayin era, it seems like air is slowly leaking out already. Half of the teams remaining can pop it fully and certainly look equipped to do so. This was perhaps the most disappointing loss of the Day era.
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