Once the euphoria of landing in the first-ever College Football Playoff wore off—or at least dimmed down—one question permeated throughout Columbus:
Can Ohio State really beat Alabama?
And according to Las Vegas oddsmakers, the answer was a sobering one.
Opening as a nine-point underdog, per Odds Shark, the Buckeyes don't seem to stand much of a chance against the Crimson Tide in the eyes of those who know the sport best. Of course, Ohio State also headed to Indianapolis as a four-point underdog against Wisconsin in the Big Ten championship game, before covering the spread by a season-best 63 points with a 59-0 blowout of the Badgers.
But beating 13th-ranked Wisconsin is one thing, and the Buckeyes' underdog status at the time was primarily due to OSU quarterback Cardale Jones making the first start of his college career. It's a safe bet that even if Buckeyes' star quarterback J.T. Barrett was healthy, Alabama would still be favored over Ohio State, who knows that it will have its hands full with the country's top-ranked team.
"Wisconsin is Wisconsin," Buckeyes defensive end Joey Bosa said. "Alabama is a different animal."
One look at the Crimson Tide's roster—and Nick Saban's track record—proves as much.
Future NFL draft picks litter both sides of the ball for Alabama, particularly on the defensive line, where the Crimson Tide have routinely rotated double-digit players throughout the season. Alabama also possesses arguably college football's best wide receiver in the past decade in the form of Heisman Trophy finalist Amari Cooper.
"Obviously [Cooper] could be the first pick in the draft," Meyer said of the reigning Biletnikoff Award winner, who's tallied 115 catches, 1,656 yards and 14 touchdowns in 2014. "He's that good."
Throw in that ESPN currently ranks eight Alabama players in its top 200 of NFL prospects for the 2015 draft, and this Crimson Tide roster is what college football has come to expect from Alabama since Saban took over the program in 2007. With a win over the Buckeyes, the Crimson Tide will move on to play for what would be their fourth national title in the past six seasons.
"Consistency at this competitive time is very impressive. And that's something everybody tries to model," Meyer said. "You can have that one-shot wonder, that one-year wonder, that one year where everything goes right. But to have it year after year, that's the model that people look for."
And while it's Alabama who's best embodied what Meyer went on to refer to as the "Patriots" model, he too has managed to build his own cradle of consistency in Columbus.
Since taking over the Ohio State program in 2012, Meyer has accumulated a remarkable 36-3 record, which has included winning streaks of 24 and now 11 games. Simultaneously, the two-time national champion head coach has been recruiting at a remarkable clip, even by his standard, luring three consecutive top-fiverecruiting classes to Columbus, with a fourth on the way.
The fruits of that labor were realized this year, when the Buckeyes were selected as the No. 4 team in college football's first-ever playoff, despite star quarterback Braxton Miller suffering a season-ending injury in training camp and Barrett going down a week before the Big Ten title game. If Ohio State has proved anything this season, it's that the Buckeyes are more than a one-man show, a roster stockpiled with young talent at almost every position.
"It's very difficult, the more competitive and the amount of exposure and every school in the country right now is trying to load up and become part of this playoff," Meyer said. "You see it happening every day across college football. To remain at the top is very difficult."
But to get there is even more difficult, which is exactly where Ohio State will be able to place itself with a win over Alabama on Thursday. That, of course, will be easier said than done, which brings us back to the current question heard 'round Columbus:
Can the Buckeyes really beat the Crimson Tide?
My Prediction
Since I wasn't responsible for writing B/R's original Sugar Bowl preview, I've yet to have gone on record with my prediction for the game. And while I'm not typically a fan of having to make such predictions, I figure a matchup of this magnitude—and column of this nature—warrants such attention.
To answer the question originally posed in this column, of course Ohio State can beat Alabama. The Buckeyes wouldn't be in the playoff if the 12-person selection committee didn't think they stood a shot in it, and they proved their worth with the dominating way in which they made their final case in Indianapolis. Regardless of what TCU and Baylor do in their respective bowl games, there isn't a more deserving team of the No. 4 spot in the playoff than Ohio State.
But will the Buckeyes beat the Crimson Tide? It's much more difficult to make that case.
On the surface, Alabama is deserving of its status as the heavy favorite, with a defensive mastermind in Saban having nearly a full month to prepare for a quarterback who at one point was Ohio State's third-stringer. The Buckeyes are talented—but young—and appear to be a year away from being legitimate national championship contenders.
But there's also reasons to like Ohio State's chances.
For one, Jones' inexperience also gives Saban limited film to work with when it comes to preparing for the Buckeyes. And of the film that does exist, Jones looks pretty impressive, consistently torching the Badgers secondary deep in his Big Ten title game MVP performance.
Add in that Meyer has thrived in his few opportunities as an underdog at Ohio State, and it becomes easier to see the Buckeyes pulling off the upset. Ultimately, I expect a game for the ages, a back-and-forth battle with just the right amount of plays on both sides of the ball for each team, with Ohio State pulling ahead late and Bosa sealing the deal with a game-clinching sack.
Crazy? Perhaps. But it's been that type of season in Columbus.
Final score: Ohio State 28, Alabama 24
Ben Axelrod is Bleacher Report's Ohio State Lead Writer. You can follow him on Twitter @BenAxelrod. Unless noted otherwise, all quotes obtained firsthand. All statistics courtesy of cfbstats.com and recruiting information courtesy of 247Sports.
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