COLUMBUS — The Buckeyes are on the brink.
A fragile, abbreviated season is nearing its breaking point, putting Ohio State’s national championship hopes at risk and perhaps squandering the Justin Fields era.
A spate of positive coronavirus tests this week, including head coach Ryan Day, led to the cancellation of Saturday’s Ohio State-Illinois game. Suddenly, the Buckeyes’ chances of qualifying for the Big Ten championship game are in jeopardy.
“It’s been a very, very emotional and difficult week for everybody in the program,” Day told reporters on a Zoom call Saturday. “I’m resting comfortably, but I have an extremely heavy heart.”
Big Ten rules require a team to play six regular-season games to be eligible for the conference title game. If either the Michigan State or Michigan games are canceled, Ohio State, which already missed one game (Maryland, Nov. 14), would fall below the threshold. Wisconsin and Maryland are the only Big Ten teams that have previously experienced coronavirus outbreaks in their programs, and both missed back-to-back games.
A loophole that could allow the Buckeyes, ranked fourth in the initial College Football Playoff rankings, to play in the Big Ten championship game is if the average number of games played in the conference drops below six. Twelve of 14 games during the final two weeks would need to be canceled for that to happen.
“Our objective now is to continue to focus on the health and safety of our players to make sure that we provide an opportunity to potentially come back to compete next weekend,” Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith said. “That is our primary focus. It’s not about the Big Ten championship game. It’s now about the CFP. It’s not about how many games we need to play. It’s about one thing: their health, their safety, and making sure each day we give them a chance to possibly play next weekend. That’s our focus 100 percent.”
Day said Ohio State would be prepared to play at Michigan State if it practices Thursday and conducts a walk-through Friday.
Ohio State paused all team activities and will not restart until medical personnel deems it safe to do so. The Buckeyes surpassed the 7.5 percent positive rate for Tier I, which includes 170 players, coaches, and support staff. But the team rate stayed below 5 percent, the Big Ten’s limit for canceling a game.
“Could we have played? Sure,” Smith said. “Was it the right thing to play? No.”
A few positive tests occurred early in the week, according to Smith and Ohio State team physician Dr. Jim Borchers. It didn’t reach a level that demanded action, however, until Friday. The Buckeyes did walk-throughs on Wednesday and Thursday and meetings were done virtually out of an abundance of caution. Previously, Ohio State had virtually zero positive tests, dating to Aug. 11.
Franklin County, home to Ohio State University, is the state’s coronavirus hotspot, the first county to reach purple, or Level 4, indicating “severe exposure and spread.” Residents are currently under a stay-at-home advisory, which contributed to OSU’s decision to not allow any family members to attend the Indiana game last Saturday.
Nearly 17,000 positive cases have been reported in Ohio the past two days — 1,491 were in Franklin County. Six members of Major League Soccer’s Columbus Crew tested positive this week.
“We live in one of the most hard-hit areas of the country,” Borchers said. “Franklin County has been struggling with a significant increase in the number of cases per 100,000 individuals, with increases in the number of E.R. visits, out-patient visits, in-patient hospitalizations, the number of individuals who are getting COVID-19 outside of congregant settings — nursing homes, group homes, and prisons.
“As that environment has changed, it’s challenged us as a group and an athletic department to continue to be vigilant to maintain the health and safety of our student-athletes.”
The biggest impediment for Ohio State right now is the Big Ten’s stringent protocols. Any Buckeyes who had a positive PCR test must sit out for 21 days, wiping out the Michigan game. They would be eligible to return for a potential Big Ten championship game.
Players are required to quarantine for 10 days and pass a heart test to remove any possibility of the heart ailment myocarditis before returning to the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. Coaches must isolate for 10 days, putting the Michigan State game in peril for Day. No one who has tested positive has required significant medical treatment and they’re all expected to make a full recovery.
Defensive line coach Larry Johnson is serving as interim head coach.
Smith indicated that the six-game and 21-day rules have not been revisited by conference athletic directors and Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren.
“Right now, I haven’t even thought about it,” Smith said. “I want to make sure the young men who have tested positive have what they need.”
How an undefeated non-Big Ten champion Ohio State team would be judged by the selection committee is unknown. It is possible, however, for OSU to build its resume without playing in Indianapolis. All 14 Big Ten schools are playing an extra crossover game, and the Buckeyes would likely draw Wisconsin or Iowa, presenting an opportunity for a quality win. Ohio State, in 2016, is the only Big Ten team to make the playoff without winning the conference championship.
“A school's body of work is what it is,” Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, a member of the CFP management committee, told CBS Sports. “This year, a school that plays six, seven, eight, or nine games would have to be prepared to make the case that those games compared favorably … to some other school’s 11 or 12 games.”
An eight-game schedule beginning in late October left the Big Ten no margin for error. The SEC, ACC, and Big 12 had built-in buffers because they began in September. Daily testing provided false optimism that program-wide outbreaks could be avoided.
“We have moments in life that we all go through,” Johnson could be heard saying in Ohio State’s hype video for the Illinois game. “How you handle this moment will dictate the future. Deal with this moment right now. And when tomorrow comes, we’ll take care of that moment. Let’s get on the plane tomorrow. Let’s go play four quarters of football.”
Tomorrow came for Ohio State, but there was no football to be played.
First Published November 28, 2020, 10:35 p.m.
