Bold claim: Ohio State’s 2025 collapse wasn’t a single failure but a four-fact catalyst, and understanding them is essential to see where the program goes from here. But here’s where it gets controversial: a lot of the angst around 2025 may be overblown if you consider how quickly college football changes and how different the 2026 season could look. This rewrite keeps the original meaning and key points, while clarifying for beginners and expanding slightly with context and examples where helpful.
Four Reasons Why
The NFL Combine exposed confirmation bias as much as it did athletic merit. What happened in Indianapolis over the weekend reinforced narratives you’ve heard, read, or speculated about for weeks. How did the Buckeyes lose back-to-back games to end the season with these players on the roster? The question isn’t just about those losses; it’s about how a program processes them and moves forward.
We should acknowledge the broader reality: 2025 isn’t simply erased by a “cleansing.” College football is evolving at a pace that can turn hard-learned lessons into artifacts if you try to lock them in as timeless principles. Planning for a meaningful two- or three-year rebuild may feel appealing, but the reality is that every program is now pressured to win immediately when the landscape shifts underfoot.
The Buckeyes won’t reset this winter and conjure a different 2026. They’re fielding a new team, with a seasoned offensive coordinator calling plays and a proven coordinator aligned with a third unit that has been an anchor since the pandemic era. Those NFL Combine highlight players will be wearing different helmets next season.
The head coach and several core faces will stay, but the expectations and the task are restated: shed 2025 and focus on fresh momentum. Here are the four reasons the Buckeyes didn’t repeat as CFP champions.
1) Special Teams: Field goals, punting, and the tendency to concede hidden yards and penalties created a substantial deficit. The unit became as much a structural weakness as it had historically been a strength, which is a troubling trend for a program that often prides itself on elite special teams.
Remedy: Robbie Discher hired as special teams coordinator. This is the first fully qualified hire in that role since Matt Barnes in 2019, a signal that Ohio State is prioritizing this phase again.
2) Offensive Philosophy & Execution: The offense struggled against high-caliber opponents with an inexperienced quarterback. Red-zone efficiency was inconsistent, routes and timing suffered as the offensive line deteriorated, and decisions during critical moments—such as prioritizing a TE over WRs on key downs—undermined scoring drives. The team also faced challenges adapting to a hostile environment and changing game tempos.
Remedy: Arthur Smith hired as the new offensive coordinator, along with Cortez Hankton, to bring NFL-level play design and play-calling experience that can better leverage the quarterback and weapons and improve consistency in crucial moments.
3) Talent Evaluation: There were notable misses in the transfer portal and evaluation process. The program overestimated certain position groups, inflated confidence in some players who didn’t pan out, and underappreciated depth at others (for example, a walk-on ending up ahead of a more talented contributor). These misreads contributed to shortages and mismatches when depth was tested.
Remedy: Ongoing adjustments to the roster, with patience as a necessary commodity given transfer portal dynamics and development timelines. The program remains in a process of recalibration to improve future talent acquisition and development.
4) Personnel Decisions: There was a misstep in entrusting a first-time play-caller with the offense, which had negative ripple effects on the quarterback room and the overall offense. The timing of staff changes, including the departure of a coordinator near the Big Ten title run, and hiring an offensive line coach whose expertise didn’t align perfectly with OL needs, created a mismatch between strategy and execution.
Remedy: The program prepares for potential upheaval, acknowledging that some changes are disruptive but necessary to realign with modern demands and speed up growth in the right areas.
In short, four factors contributed to a season that didn’t live up to the championship standard: special teams underperformance, mismatched offensive strategy with limited QB development, flawed talent evaluation, and questionable personnel decisions. These aren’t binary failures but a constellation of issues that, taken together, explain the 2025 outcome.
Additional context: Indiana’s win in a talent-flattened landscape showed that teams can succeed without a conveyor belt of NFL-ready players. The Buckeyes, aging in some spots and redefining roles in others, faced a rebuilding year more openly than some peers. The prevailing takeaway isn’t that Ohio State is doomed; it’s that the path to a title in 2026 may depend on smarter roster management, sharper play design, and a renewed emphasis on all three phases of the game, plus the agility to adapt as the sport continues to evolve rapidly.
Looking ahead, Ohio State will approach 2026 with a stronger emphasis on coaching clarity, more precise utilization of talent, and a renewed focus on execution across all units. The core principles aren’t abandoned; they’re tested and refined in response to this era’s demands. And whether 2026 becomes a title defense or a competitive resurgence will depend on how well these four areas are improved and how quickly the program can translate those improvements into on-field results.
Would you agree that the 2026 Buckeyes have a stronger case for competing for a national title than the 2025 version did, given the changes in coordinators and roster strategy? Or do you think the risks of upheaval outweigh the potential gains? Share your thoughts in the comments.
