National Champions, New Perception

Well, I've had a week to process it and I still have a huge smile on my face! The Ohio State Buckeyes...the team that many said didn't belong in the College Football Playoff, won the whole damn thing!

They went up against the #1 team in the nation from the mighty SEC, and knocked them off! Ezekiel Elliot ran all over Alabama to the tune of  230 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Then against the Oregon Ducks, he ran all over them for 246 yards and 4 touchdowns.

But what impressed me the most in the National Championship, was the defense. The Buckeyes were facing the team that scored quickest, and scored the most in all of college football. The Ducks averaged almost 50 points a game, and their touchdown drives averaged just over two minutes.

Would the defense be able to get a stop or two? Would they be sucking wind by the fourth quarter, allowing Oregon to just gash them?

The Buckeyes held them to 20 points, and forced the Ducks to punt more times in a single game than likely any time in the past three years.

The Buckeyes have changed the perception of their team. People now call them an "SEC team in the North," Urban Meyer has made this team into what he wanted them to be. Physical, fast, tough. They are mentally tough...losing Braxton Miller, then having JT Barrett come in and lead them to the brink of the Playoffs and losing him in the *ichigan game...third string QB Cardale Jones leading them through the Big Ten Championship, Sugar Bowl, and then caping it off with a National Championship.

There has always been a target on Ohio State's back in the Big Ten. They have won 7 conference championships in the past 13 years. If you include their vacated share of the Big Ten championship in 2010. that gives them 8 of 13. They've won a total of 24 Big Ten championships, second only to *ichigan's 42.

Now that they're the National Champions, that target is only going to be bigger.

The Buckeyes are expected to run the table this upcoming season, win the Big Ten, and be a top two seed in the College Football Playoffs.

They were there a year earlier than Urban Meyer expected. The perception of the Buckeyes now is that they could be a dynasty in the making.

I'll take that perception any time! O-H! I-O!

B1G Champs/College Football Playoff STATEment

Last night, the Buckeyes made an Ohio STATEment with a 59-0 clobbering of the Wisconsin Badgers to win the 2014 Big Ten Championship.

The Buckeyes did it without the quarterback that they originally thought would be starting the season, a player who was considered a Heisman Trophy front runner: Braxton Miller. They did it without their second string quarterback, who became a Heisman Trophy candidate and broke Big Ten and Ohio State records throughout the season: JT Barrett.

So then who did they do it with? Their third string quarterback, Cardale Jones, who was the MVP of the Big Ten Championship Game after tossing three TD passes.

I guess the Buckeyes just stockpile talented quarterbacks.

Ezekiel Elliot ran for a Big Ten Championship Game record 220 yards and added another couple of touchdowns.

They did all of this against the #2 defense in college football. They put up a brick wall against the NCAA's leading rusher, Melvin Gordon, who they held to 76 yards on 26 carries and no touchdowns. Gordon had seven consecutive 100 yard games coming into this one. On top of that, as mentioned before, Elliot broke the record for most rush yards in a Big Ten Championship Game...a record that was held by Gordon. I think it's safe to say that Gordon has a really bad night.

Urban Meyer won his first Big Ten Championship as Ohio State head coach. This was the type of game everyone expected Meyer's teams to put up.

Now the question is, was it enough to put the Buckeyes in the one of the four College Football Playoff spots?

The three teams that are definetly in: SEC Champion Alabama, Pac-12 Champion Oregon, and ACC Champion Florida State,

The battle for the fourth spot is between Big 12 Co-Champions TCU and Baylor, and Big Ten Champion Ohio State.

It's been said that conference championships are going to play a big role in choosing the four teams to make the Playoff. And if that's the case, I don't see how you can leave Ohio State out. They have a conference championship, the Big 12 doesn't have a conference champion, they have co-champions. You can't put two teams in one playoff spot.

If the College Football Playoff committee wants to put the best four teams in college football right now in the Playoff, then I don't see how you leave Ohio State out, especially with what they just did to Wisconsin.

It's obvious the committee doesn't respect Baylor's head-to-head win against TCU, seeing how they've had the Horned Frogs ahead of the Bears and even put them in the top four last week.

So if that's the case. how can you hold Ohio State's week two loss against Virginia Tech against them? This is a completely different Ohio State team than back in week two, literally and figuratively.

If they leave Ohio State out, I think they will have failed at putting the four best teams in college football in the playoff. If they put them in, I still think they should expand the College Football Playoff to eight teams.