Saturday’s trip to Iowa was expected to be another grade-boosting win for the Ohio State football team.
Instead, it ended up being a test that the Buckeyes failed miserably.
While we just gave the Buckeyes a progress report last week, and hadn’t planned to give them another report card until after their final regular-season game against Michigan, Saturday’s 55-24 loss to the Hawkeyes forced us to immediately re-evaluate our grades for each Ohio State position group.
Although the Buckeyes did what they needed to do to pass their midterm exam against Penn State, winning 39-38, it became clear in the follow-up test that I gave the Buckeyes too much credit – and overlooked some lingering flaws as a result – for one marquee victory and a bunch of wins against inferior teams.