How the Ohio State football team avoids mistakes from the 2015 season
The Ohio State football team will be defending a national championship next season. It’s not a position that they have found themselves in very often in the last 25 years or so. They had to do so 2003 and in 2015, neither time resulting in a successful defense.
While the 2003 season was understandable that they weren’t able to win it again, the 2015 season was not the same set of circumstances. In fact, you could argue that the 2015 team was even more talented than the 2014 team that won the title. They had almost every main contributor back.
While the same can’t be said for the 2025 Ohio State Buckeyes, there are still some similarities. There are some mistakes that the Buckeyes need to avoid making that they made in 2015. They only have one coach left from that 2015 team on staff, and that is Larry Johnson.
How the Ohio State football team can avoid making the same mistakes they did during their last title defense
The biggest mistake that the Buckeyes made in 2015 was to play musical chairs with the quarterback. Cardale Jones started as the starter, but J.T. Barrett was eventually the guy who took over the job. Urban Meyer should have just named him the starter to begin with.
Ryan Day will have a new starter in 2025. He also needs to avoid any sort of musical chairs. He needs to pick a starter and stick with him, for better or for worse. It will likely be Julian Sayin, but there will be real competition for that starting job. Day needs to be committed to whoever wins.
Another mistake the Buckeyes made in 2015 was not getting their best players involved in big games. The only game they lost against Michigan State saw them avoid giving the ball to Ezekiel Elliott for whatever reason. That cost them a chance to play in the College Football Playoff.
Brian Hartline can’t let that happen. Ryan Day will hopefully learn from the disastrous Michigan game last year where they did the same thing. Hartline needs to make sure that he keeps getting the ball to Jeremiah Smith. That would be a massive mistake.
