The Next Opponent on Ohio State’s Schedule Comes at the Worst Possible Time

The next opponent on Ohio State’s calendar is the last team that the Buckeyes and their fans want to see: BYE.

BYE is my least favorite game every single year. From the fans’ perspective, there is absolutely nothing to be gained from playing against this team. They don’t improve our Strength of Schedule; they don’t help us improve our perception – in fact, we’ll probably be completely ignored this week. We just can’t beat this team. Sure, BYE has such an inferior talent level that our entire two-deep can mail it in and use the weekend to recover from any nagging injuries, but where’s the entertainment in that?

As an opponent, BYE is so putrid that Ohio State – the No. 1 team in the country, with the nation’s longest active winning streak (21) – isn’t even being televised this week. As a matter of fact, no record of this weekend’s game will even be kept. No stats, no highlights, nothing. BYE is like the Washington Generals of college football. Speaking of that, RIP Washington Generals.

BYE is such a cupcake opponent that OSU players love to face off against them, but they bring absolutely nothing to the table as far entertaining fans. Instead, we’re left with scouting Michigan rooting for Michigan to lose, among of a list of other games that are nice to watch but just don’t get our adrenaline flowing like the Scarlet and Gray.

And BYE shows up at the worst possible time. After seven weeks of Ohio State’s expected-to-be-fine-tuned offense sloppily rumblin’, bumblin’, stumblin’ to closer-than-necessary victories over vastly less talented competition, the Buckeyes finally switched to J.T. Barrett as the starting quarterback – who was promptly named the Big Ten Player of the Week.

Unsurprisingly, the OSU offense finally soared en route to a 49-7 victory over Rutgers. So after nearly two months of Ohio State fans clamoring for the offense to come remotely close to hinting at its potential, Urban Meyer made the switch at quarterback and the end product looked glorious. Now, eight games into the season, the Buckeyes are starting to show fans what we presumably could have seen in Week 1.

And just as the offense looks to get clicking and gain momentum as we push towards meaningful November contests, BYE rears its ugly head and wastes our time. What a tease! I want to see J.T. Barrett accumulate even sweeter stats, while living up to his nickname of “The Distributor”, as he gets our boatload of talented skill players plenty of opportunities to make plays.

But, alas, we’re stuck with BYE this week. We’ll have to wait another week to see how smooth the Ohio State offense really is and how goof the Buckeyes really are as a complete team, as they continue to gel more and more towards the most important games on the schedule. In the meantime, this coming weekend is a time for doing work around the house and rooting for Michigan to lose.

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