COLUMBUS, Ohio -- This national championship run for Ohio State will begin with a rest that feels mostly like just another bye week, not a bowl break.
A quirk of the calendar and a shift of the calendar conspired to make this time off as short as it can be for any team making the College Football Playoff semifinal.
• First, conference championship weekend was on Dec. 7, the latest date possible. The league title games are held on the first Saturday in December, and this year that was the seventh day of the month. This was just the second time in the nine years of the Big Ten Championship that it was held Dec. 7. Last year it was Dec. 1.
• Second, the playoff semifinals were moved up from when they were originally scheduled. The games are on Dec. 28, when they were first planned for Dec. 31. In 2015, the second season of the playoff, the games were held on Thursday, Dec. 31, which resulted in lower TV ratings as fans complained about weekday New Year’s Eve broadcasts. The next summer, the playoff announced that the semifinals would be played on Saturdays or holidays. That moved the games this season from Tuesday, Dec. 31, to Saturday, Dec. 28.
Thirteen years after Ohio State went to the Fiesta Bowl on a 51-day break to play for the 2006 National Championship against Florida, the Buckeyes will head to Arizona off a break less than half that long. In 2006, the Big Ten regular season ended a week earlier than other conferences, and there was no conference title game. That’s been changed for years, and with the addition of a semifinal before a title game, the window between the Buckeyes’ last game of the season and first game of a title run has shortened. Here is Ohio State’s break between games for its last five championship game or playoff appearances:
• 2006, 51 days.
• 2007, 51 days.
• 2014, 26 days.
• 2016, 35 days. (didn’t make Big Ten Championship)
• 2019, 21 days.
Now it’s as short as it can be.
“This is very unique,” OSU coach Ryan Day said. “It’s only three weeks, so we’ll kind of treat the first one like a bye week. The second one will be a typical game week. We’ll let them go home for a few days, and then we’ll have the game week. That will be the plan. I think it’s the best move, and I think we’ll have them fresh and ready to roll.”
The bye week plan is happening now while the coaches are out recruiting and several of the best players are out on the award circuit.
• Chase Young was in Charlotte, N.C, for the Nagurski Award on Monday.
• Jordan Fuller was in New York on Tuesday for the National Football Foundation Awards.
• Young, J.K. Dobbins, Jeff Okudah and Justin Fields will be in Atlanta on Thursday for the College Football Awards.
• Young and Fields will be in New York on Friday and Saturday for the Heisman Trophy.
This is also Ohio State’s finals week, with the last tests Thursday.
The Buckeyes will then do a game week plan before the players will get a chance to go home for a few days next week. Players then can fly directly to Phoenix to meet the team, which will start preparation at the Fiesta Bowl site on Dec. 23, as Ohio State will re-do its game week.
After the playoff announcement on Sunday, a lot of questions for Day focused on the break the players will get.
“We’re OK physically, to be honest,” Day said. “But I think emotionally and mentally we need a little break here. We need to get away. So we’ll do a little lifting, a little running here. ... Now they need some time away just to kind of catch their breath and get reenergized, but we’ve got to do a good job of getting our rest and getting healthy this week.”
But I found the idea of how small this break is more interesting. After the Buckeyes lost in 2006, a huge deal was made out of the rust the team may have acquired during more than seven weeks off. Now, with finals and Christmas and National Signing Day next Wednesday in between, a 21-day break almost seems too short.
“For the players I think it’s going to be fine,” Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith said, putting faith in the OSU logistical plan. “For the coaches, this is a real challenge. I feel for them, because literally, they’re gone now.”
Smith spoke Sunday as the OSU coaches were already hitting the road recruiting to make up for time lost while the Buckeyes were preparing for the Big Ten Championship.
They’ll be back soon. This recruiting period ends after Saturday. Then there’s a game against Clemson, the No. 3 team in the country. It’ll be here before they know it, which is probably better than waiting forever.
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