Ohio State Adds National Championship To Its Football Schedule Again Because Hey, It Worked Last Season

Every college football team has the same goals: beat your rival, win the division, win the conference, make a bowl game, make the Playoff, win the Championship. And at the beginning of the season, technically every team is still in it.

We all know that isn’t actually true, but you really never know which schools will make a run at it and have a remarkable season. Sure, that Playoff appearance might be a bit out of line for a school like UMass or UNLV with the power dynamics of college football matched with those whole “realistic expectations.” But that’s not super important in the realm of spring ball. Kids need goals, they need something to strive for, and setting those marks as high as possible is a constant reminder in the locker room of what you put in all those 6 a.m. lifts and two-a-days for.

Last year, Ohio State didn’t just put its regular season schedule up in the locker room. Instead, it dropped in the Big Ten Championship, the Playoff Semifinals, and the National Championship.

People snickered at the audacity of it, especially after the Buckeyes lost to Virginia Tech early in the season. And then Ohio State kept winning, and winning, and winning, and after the Big Ten title game, the Buckeyes were in the Top 4. Well, we all know what happened next, and Ohio State – along with its 18 capable starting quarterbacks – won it all, besting Alabama and Oregon en route to that weird looking but still all so satisfying trophy.

So why wouldn’t Ohio State do that again this year? It worked, and everyone knows in sports you don’t mess with a good thing. Jinxes are real. Props to the Buckeyes for putting it all out there on their locker room wall. Plus, it’ll never not be funny seeing them call Michigan “That Team Up North.”