This season I was approached by salsoothsayer.com to do a preview of The Ohio State Buckeyes 2014 football team. I was honored and excited, now that it is done I wanted to share it with our MotSaG readers. Please visit salsoothsay5r.com to see the previews of the other Big Ten teams and see our predictions of how the Big Ten teams will finish. Hope you enjoy and would love your feedback.

The Ohio State Buckeyes

Last Season: 12-2
Last Years Bowl: Orange Bowl lost to Clemson
By: Shannon Sommers/@smsommers84/menofthescarletandgray.com

Coach: Urban Meyer
Record at institution (years): 24-2 (2)
Overall record: 128-25

Position Preview:

QB:
Braxton Miller (6’2,215) Senior. Heisman trophy candidate, Athlon Preseason Third Team All American, on the Walter Camp Award watchlist. A dual threat quarterback who sometimes makes some amazing, video game like, moves to evade tacklers when he hits the open field. Having improved some from last season with his run first mentality, Braxton needs to trust in himself and improve his accuracy this season which might be a tall task. Miller will be playing behind only one returning lineman from last season however to make that next step, this is where his leadership skills must kick in. Braxton has all the tools and the coaching staff to allow him to be the best quarterback in the nation this season, coming back for his senior season showed he is ready to take that step and light up the Big Ten.

Grade: A

RB:
Here’s where it gets a little dicey for the Buckeyes and honestly I think I’m being conservative. Last season Carlos Hyde destroyed everyone and everything in his path to become Urban Meyer’s first 1k rusher ever. Who steps up and fills that role? Ezekiel Elliott or Bri’onte Dunn? Dunn should be the favorite for being in the program for 2 years already although he was redshirted last season and has been a disappointment, which has really brought out the drive in him and at the Spring Game he looked like he had some toughness finally. Elliott looked good last season as a true freshman and he really wants to be the leading back. Those are the two bruising backs, I haven’t even mentioned true freshman and speedster Curtis Samuel.

Grade: B

Receivers:
This group is going to be interesting to watch this season. Seniors Devon Smith, Evan Spencer and sophomore speedster Dontre Wilson will be the leaders of this unit. Meyer went out and recruited some nice talent like Johnnie Dixon, Parris Campbell and Terry McLaurin. The tight ends are some of the best in senior Jeff Heuerman and junior Nick Vannett, just wish they were just used more frequently. Adding height and speed is what was needed for this group, its here now to develop.

Grade: B

Offensive Line:
The O-Line comes in with some question marks. Only one returning starter and a graduate transfer from Alabama. Senior Taylor Decker and graduate transfer Chad Linsey are going to lead the way and help develop the talent that Urban has recruited. Studs like Jamarco Jones (6’5,315), Marcelys Jones (6’4,340), Demetrius Knox (6’4,285), Kyle Trout (6’6,300) and Brady Taylor (6’5,290). They are very big and quick, The Wall of Scarlet and Gray, will be able to make big holes and protect Miller when needed. Plus practicing against one of the best defensive lines daily will speed up their learning curve.

Grade: C

Defensive Line:
This unit is going to be one of the much talked about and highly rated in the nation. Senior Michael Bennett (6’2,288), junior Adolpus Washington(6,44,288), junior Noah Spence (6’3,252) and sophomore Joey Bosa (6’5,285) combined for 24 sacks and 43 tackles for loss last season. There has been some turnover on the D-line this offseason for various reasons although joining the group are two studs in Dylan Thompson (6’5,270) and Jayln Holmes (6’5,240). Spence is suspended for the first two games of the season still there is some depth there albeit slim depth.

Grade: A

Linebackers:
The loss of Ryan Shazier the leading tackler is going to sting nevertheless junior Joshua Perry showed he will be able to step in and play the weak side, replacing Shazier. Sophomore Darron Lee is the leading candidate for the strong side spot. Senior Curtis Grant who has underachieved is needing to have his breakout season or risk losing his spot to true freshman Raekwon McMillan. Also in the mix for major playing time is freshman Chris Worley and sophomore Trey Johnson. Playing behind that defensive line is an advantage for the young squad that will hopefully improve on being 9th in the nation against the run.

Grade: B

Defensive Backs:
This will be the only time I thank Bret Bielema in my life. Former Wisconsin and Arkansas Defensive backs coach Chris Ash joined the Buckeyes staff. #karma For Buckeye fans what this means is they will now see man press coverage. DB’s at the line of scrimmage instead of the dreaded zone from last year. Buckeyes lost a lot of talent last season in their secondary which is ironic on how they were getting torched but they have senior Doran Grant and junior Tyvis Powell as leaders returning. There is a stable of young speedy talent like sophomores Vonn Bell, Cam Burrows, and freshmen Eli Apple, Marshon Lattimore, Damon Webb, Erick Smith, Malik Hooker. This group is going to be exciting to watch grow with Ash coaching them.

Grade: C

Special Teams:
In order to play for Coach Meyer you have to play special teams. The Buckeyes have some serious speed either covering downfield or returning kicks. Sophomore Cam Johnston might be one of the best punters in the league. That is if he has a chance to punt, averaging 3.5 punts per game, 44 yards per punt. They have a freshman for a kicker Sean Nuernberger which for Ohio State is fine only attempting ten field goals last season.

Grade: A

Coaching:
Urban Meyer’s highlighted two National Championships speaks for itself. Even Meyer’s most vocal critics must concede that he is raising the bar in the Big Ten. Chris Ash joined the team as CO-Defensive Coordinator and Defensive Backs coach. Former Penn State Assistant coach Larry Johnson has joined Ohio State as an Assistant and Defensive Line coach replacing Mike Vrable who joined the Houston Texans coaching staff. The mad scientist behind the exploding Buckeye offense is Tom Herman.

Grade: A

Best Case Scenario for 2014:
The Buckeyes win the Big Ten Championship game and head to the College Football Playoffs. Two wins later Ohio State brings the National Title back to Columbus. The year topped off by Braxton Miller winning the Heisman Tropy and Michael Bennett winning the Branko Nagurski Award.

Worst Case Scenario for 2014:
After a successful regular season it’s deja vu all over again as the team loses the Bug Ten Championship game and miss out on the first ever playoffs.

2014 Statistical Leaders
Passing: ATT COMP PCT TD INT QBR
Braxton Miller 255 162 63.5 24 7 158.1
Kenny Guiton 109 75 68.8 14 2 165.2

Rushing: ATT YDS YPC TD LONG
Carlos Hyde 208 1521 7.3 15 55
Braxton Miller 171 1068 6.2 12 70
Jordon Hall 81 536 6.6 8 49
Kenny Guiton 40 330 8.3 5 44
Ezekeil Elliott 30 262 8.7 1 26

Receiving: REC YDS AVG TD LONG
Philly Brown 63 771 12,2 10 58
Devin Smith 44 660 15.0 8 90
Jeff Heuermann 26 466 17.9 4 57
Evan Spencer 22 216 9.8 3 25
Dontre Wilson 22 210 9.5 2 32
Chris Fields 16 193 12.1 6 47
Carlos Hyde 16 147 9.2 3 25
Nick Vannett 8 80 10.0 1 16

Defense: TKLS SACKS TFL INT
Ryan Shazier 144 7 23.5 –
C.J. Barnett 84 – 5 4
Bradley Roby 69 – 2 3
Joshua Perry 64 1 2 –
Doran Grant 58 – 2 3
Corey Brown 55 – 1 –
Curtis Grant 52 2 3.5 –
Noah Spence 50 7.5 14 –
Tyvis Powell 48 – 1 1
Joey Bosa 44 7.5 13.5 –
Michael Bennett 42 7.0 11.5 –
Adolphus Washington 36 2.0 4 –

Kicking: XP-ATT PCT FG-ATT PCT LONG PTS
Drew Basil 77-79 97.5% 9-10 90% 45 104
Kyle Clinton 3-3 100% — – – 3

Punting: NO YARDS AVG NET
Cameron Johnston 49 2156 44 40.8

Stadium Name: Ohio Stadium, The Horseshoe, The Shoe

Capacity: 104,581

Attendance Last Year: 104,933 average

Unique about the Stadium/Tailgating/Gameday experience:
The Shoe is one of the most historic and largest stadiums in the nation, fans show up 5 hours before kickoff to start tailgating. There is The Best Damn Band in The Land, Script Ohio, so many more unique things that are Ohio State that you must experience when going to a game in Columbus. An experience like none other.

The BCS is dead! Isn’t that nice? After years of howling from college football fans to ditch the BCS and implement a playoff system, those fans will finally get that satisfaction in the 2014 college football season. On January 1 every year now the top four teams, as selected by college football playoff selection committee, will face off in semifinal games that take place at neutral sites. The #1 team will face the #4 team and the #2 team will face the #3 team. The winners of these games will then face off in the national championship game about a week or so later, with the game always taking place on a Monday night (this season its January 12). According to the college football playoff website,”the selection committee will choose the four teams for the playoff based on strength of schedule, head-to-head results, comparison of results against common opponents, championships won and other factors.” To read more information about the playoff on the website, click here.

With the national championship now being decided more fairly, the big question is now going to be who will be those final four teams? Well this year there is certainly no shortage of candidates for those four spots, as there are several great teams scattered across the country who appear on paper to have a shot at the National Championship. As I was trying to predict who these final four teams will be, I weighed several factor when making my four choices (strength of schedule, returning starters, coaches, etc.). If I don’t pick your team as one of the final four teams in my predictions below, please don’t take it personally. It’s just college football. And besides I’m going to list honorable mentions, which should cover most of the top contenders. Let’s gaze into my crystal ball. (My list is in no particular order)

Alabama

Why I Picked Them For The Final Four: Every year the Crimson Tide are in the national title conversation. Whether you love him or hate him, Nick Saban knows how to get the most out of his team every season and leading them to double-digit victories. They lose Heisman finalist and starting quarterback AJ McCarron, which will hurt them at first. But his replacement is pretty good, as he will be replaced by junior Florida State transfer Jake Coker, who battled Jameis Winston fiercely last summer for the starting quarterback position. With the schedule being easy early on, Coker will have plenty of time to prepare for the meat of their schedule. Running back TJ Sheldon and playmaking wide receiver Amari Cooper return to give him two deadly weapons. The defense loses several talented players, but their replacements look pretty good on paper. They get their bitter rival and biggest competition, Auburn, at home. The schedule isn’t that daunting, so I’ll be shocked if Alabama doesn’t at least win double-digit games this season. Saban will have his team right in the thick of the SEC race and national title playoffs.

Three Toughest Games: @ Ole Miss, @ LSU, Auburn

Ohio State

Why I Picked Them For The Final Four: Not because I’m a homer. I’ll give you logical reasons as to why. First, Braxton Miller returns at quarterback in his senior season and is the straw that stirs the drink in the Buckeye offense. If he hadn’t got hurt last season, he would’ve been a Heisman finalist. With the departure of Kenny Guiton, there is a lot less room for error this season. Miller is surrounded by great weapons in Dontre Wilson, Ezekiel Elliott, Corey Smith, Devin Smith and Jeff Heuerman. The offensive line loses four starters, but their replacements have looked good in practice and Urban has high hopes for them. It will be something to keep an eye on though. The defensive line is the biggest strength on the team and is arguably the best in the country. Noah Spence, Joey Bosa and Michael Bennett are all three capable of being first team All-Americans. The secondary is the other spot to watch on this team. The last time we saw this unit, it was getting torched in the Orange Bowl by Tajh Boyd and Sammy Watkins. The new unit, headed by Doran Grant, has shown improvement in the offseason under new secondary coach Chris Ash and Urban promises it will improve. We’ll have to wait and see, but I believe the Buckeyes have a friendly enough schedule (drawing the three weakest B1G West teams) and enough weapons to reach the playoffs.

Three Toughest Games: Virginia Tech, @ Michigan State, Michigan

Florida State

Why I Picked Them For The Final Four: Jameis Winston, the freshman who set the college football world on fire last season, winning the Heisman trophy, going undefeated and leading the Seminoles to victory for the 2013 National Championship. He returns for his sophomore season, along with four of his six top receivers. Both the offensive line and defensive line return great talent and the starters that were lost are replaced with highly rated recruits. Linebackers and the secondary are less experienced areas on the team and are two of the weaker spots, but once again highly rated prospects waiting in the wings will be filling the losses. The Seminoles return 13 starters in total. This team isn’t expected to lose a beat from where they left off, however the chances of a championship hangover will threaten the team’s focus early on. Repeating success in college football is no easy task. Winston will also have to keep out of trouble, after having a problem involving crab legs in the offseason. If Winston were to get hurt or suspended this season, the Seminoles would be in deep trouble. I’m sure Jimbo Fisher will be keeping a keen eye on his star quarterback. With a favorable schedule and lots of weapons, Florida State is a top contender to win it all again.

Three Toughest Games: Oklahoma State (at Arlington), Clemson, Notre Dame

Oregon

Why I Picked Them For The Final Four: The Ducks return a great quarterback of their own in Marcus Mariota, who had over 4,000 yards of total offense in 2013. Needless to say, Mariota is one of the best quarterbacks in the country and will be a contender for the Heisman. Oregon loses several players at running back and wide receiver, let’s be honest about this situation. The Ducks have plenty of talent replacing them, as every year Oregon has a three-headed monster of running backs and the wide receivers are athletic freaks. And did I mention that they only lose one starter on the offensive line and their line heading into this year has 108 combined career starts? In my eyes there are no concerns on the offensive side of the ball. Most of the defensive starters return too. With the Ducks high-powered offense, the defense just needs to be good for Oregon to wins lots of games. So why aren’t more people talking about Oregon as a national title contender? Their schedule is absolutely brutal. They face Michigan State, UCLA, Arizona and Stanford. They also have a trap game against Washington and have to face their bitter rival Oregon State in the Civil War on the road (the visitor is 4-13 in the last 17 games). I doubt the Ducks will escape this schedule without at least one loss, but I believe they can make the final four with a loss. Their strength of schedule is certainly a double-edged sword that will either push them in or out of the playoffs.

Three Toughest Games: Michigan State, @ UCLA, Stanford

Other Contenders That Could Be In The Playoff Conversation:
The following teams could also enter the conversation and easily make the playoffs under the right circumstances. I believe these teams all have a solid shot at undefeated or one loss seasons and at the very least have a great shot at making one of the marquee bowl games. Those 16 teams are the following:

SEC – Auburn, Georgia, LSU, Ole Miss
B1G – Michigan State, Wisconsin, Iowa
Big 12 – Oklahoma & Baylor
PAC 12 – UCLA, USC, Stanford
Independents – Notre Dame
Mountain West – Boise State
MAC – Northern Illinois
Conference USA – Marshall

Let me know what you think of my predictions in the comments and feel free to share your own.

We here at MotSaG are interviewing several potential writers and have asked each of them to write about a different topic and will present them to our readers so they may give some feedback. Please leave some comments for the guys and show some support. Thanks

This post is brought to you by Nathan Burns and you can find him on Twitter at @SC_Bucks.

There are an infinite amount of moments that come to mind when thinking about the history of Ohio State. Holy Buckeye against Purdue in 2002, Eddie’s 314 against Illinois, and Archie grabbing his 2nd Heisman back in 1975 are just a few that come to mind. But I’ve selected some that really meant more to this university than most people think. Here is my top 3 greatest moments in Ohio State history. 

Chic Harley and the Birth of the Shoe

Charles “Chic” Harley came to Ohio State in 1916, a time where football didn’t engulf all of Ohio. Ohio Field was the home of the Buckeyes (where Arps Hall is today) and sat only around 20,000 which was usually more than enough seating. But Chic changed all that with his inaugural season as a Buckeye. When then national powerhouse Wisconsin came to town, fans flocked to watch Chic and the Buckeyes. The bleachers were overflowing to a point where many fans ended up watching from their cars. The heavily favored Badgers couldn’t stop Harley that day and it brought Ohio State a Big Ten Championship. Popularity of football exploded in Columbus after this and the university never looked back. As his career wore on, more and more fans would show up at games, especially when playing big time opponents like Illinois, Wisconsin and That Team Up North (he brought us our first victory against them in 1919). It was becoming pretty obvious that we needed a much larger facility for football, perhaps even a stadium like Harvard or Yale had. So the idea for Ohio Stadium was born and a massive fundraiser went underway in 1920 which would eventually raise over $1 million. By 1922, the 66,000 seat stadium was complete with thousands passing through her walls for the first time. If you were to conduct a survey with the 105,000+ fans in the Shoe this fall, how many would know this story? I have a bad feeling most would have little to no knowledge of this, or of Harley for that matter. This needs to change. Buckeye parents and grandparents need to tell their little ones about Chic Harley and how influential he is in Ohio State Football history. Without him, who knows where this program would be today.  Maybe this isn’t a specific moment in time; however the play and popularity of Chic influenced the birth of what is today known by some as, “The House That Harley Built.” 

2002 National Championship Game: January 3, 2003

We were in the midst of a 34 year drought. Numerous opportunities to win national titles presented themselves in the mid 1970’s and really any time in the 1990’s, yet we continued to fail to bring home a 7th title. But the Buckeyes were finally getting another chance. Second year head coach Jim Tressel led Ohio State to Tempe, Arizona after running off 13 hold-your-breath wins. Now they would go up against the defending champion and heavily favored Miami Hurricanes who were loaded with NFL talent. Pretty much any sports outlet had us losing by at least a touchdown, giving us no chance to compete with the Canes because we were too slow (sound familiar?). However, the Buckeyes had other plans. Back and forth they went with tons of memorable plays but none more relevant than when Maurice Clarett chased down Sean Taylor after he picked off Craig Krenzel in the endzone. The double overtime thriller ended when Cie Grant came off the edge to disrupt Ken Dorsey and force him to throw a prayer. We were National Champs again! It was arguably the greatest National Championship Game played during the BCS era and it vaulted Ohio State into one of its most successful decades ever. We would reach BCS games in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010. In my opinion, Tressel put us back on the map in 2002 and that title greatly influenced the next eight years for us. It remains one of my favorite Buckeye memories.

October 19, 2013: Ohio State vs. Iowa

This specific game might not be that important or memorable for most of Buckeye Nation however it is a narrative to what I believe thousands of fathers and sons have experienced at the Horseshoe over the years. My dad had been a Buckeye fan all his life with me joining him as a member of Buckeye Faithful the day I was born. We had watched games and discussed the state of the team together for as long as I can remember. I remember going to the spring game with him on many occasions but it was always with the whole family. When I left for college, I realized that I wouldn’t be watching the games with him anymore which was disappointing. But I wondered what it would be like to spend a Saturday in the Shoe together, just the two of us. We would get that chance my senior year as I was able to get him a ticket in the student section with me. My dad and I threw back a few beers at Varsity Club while watching the noon slate of games. When we finally entered Ohio Stadium, I felt like I was in an Ohio State version of Rudy. We got to our seats and were able to take in the ups and downs of every play. We would go nuts every time the Buckeyes scored, almost as if we never left our living room at home. Needless to say, it was a great day to be a Buckeye. It remains one of my favorite Ohio State memories of all time and I hope I get to do it again sometime soon. And I mention it here because I have a feeling this is a memory many Ohioans have with their own fathers and sons. Ohio State Football has that special ability to bring people together. Someday, I will have this moment with my future son