playBill ConnellySep 13, 2026, 05:00 PM ETCloseBill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.Multiple AuthorsOpen Extended ReactionsYou could say that college football college football’d particularly hard in Week 2.A week after Tulsa walloped Oklahoma State, the Cowboys beat No. 6 Oregon by eight — Oregon was lucky to be even that close — while the Golden Hurricane nearly lost to Sam Houston. After losing by two scores to Idaho State last week, Utah State came within a Hail Mary of beating Washington.
Cal visited Syracuse with a minus-21 point differential for the season versus Syracuse’s plus-63; the Golden Bears won. After humiliating Clemson, LSU found itself leading Louisiana Tech by only six late in the third quarter before accelerating.Five teams — Florida Atlantic, Kennesaw State, NC State, Oklahoma State and Utah State — have already both overachieved and underachieved against SP+ projections by at least 20 points in a game, while 10 have done so by at least 14 points. And the season is all of 2 weeks old.The sport has already left us with conflicting impressions about nearly every damn team in the country. But if seemingly everything has already happened once this year, what has happened multiple times?
What truths can we potentially start to glean from this odd sample and, frankly, odd sport? At the very least, here are a few things I’ve started to believe.Ohio State has a close-game — and close-game-urgency — problemI keep coming back to tempo. It’s probably a “me” thing at this point, but I can’t get past it. In a world in which elite college football teams might play as many as 17 games in a season, Ohio State coach Ryan Day has made the decision to slow his offense down as much as humanly possible.
And there’s logic behind it: The difference between 60 and 80 snaps per game, over that many games, is over 300 snaps and, consequently, over 300 opportunities for injury or wear and tear. But there’s a trade-off in that calculation: By shrinking games down into a much smaller number of plays and drives, you give yourself less of an opportunity to maximize your superiority.In the first half against Texas on Saturday night in Austin — a shocking 24-23 comeback win from the Longhorns, if you somehow weren’t paying attention — the Buckeyes were rolling. Texas had some deer-in-headlights moments, losing a fumble on the game’s first play and suffering a fluky interception on an open deep ball to Cam Coleman and a dropped touchdown pass from Ryan Wingo. Ohio State averaged 6.5 yards per play to the Horns’ 3.1 and generated five red zone trips to Texas’ one.
Jeremiah Smith would finish the half with six catches for 110 yards. But until a failed fourth-down conversion attempt in the final minute of the half gave them a free scoring opportunity, the Buckeyes had possessed the ball just four times and led just 13-3. They were taking 28.5 seconds per snap, a faster tempo than last season but still very slow. Even when Smith scored with 10 seconds left in the half to make it 20-3, the score didn’t quite reflect reality.The casual nature only increased to start the second half.
Day elected to punt on fourth-and-4 from the Texas 39 on the Buckeyes’ first drive after halftime; with the way Texas’ offense was struggling, you can see the logic in wanting to make the Horns drive the length of the field, but when Smith is unstoppable and Julian Sayin is flying high (he was 12-for-16 for 192 yards in the first half), 4 yards is nothing. The Buckeyes could have essentially ended the game right there, but they took the passive approach instead.The cracks began to form from there, even if they were imperceptible at first. Sayin got hurried on three consecutive pass attempts on the Buckeyes’ next drive, and while Smith reeled in an underthrown deep ball to set up a field goal and give them a 23-3 lead, Sayin would battle a damning period of inaccuracy, missing a wide open Devin McCuin for a likely touchdown on second down before the field goal and throwing behind Smith a couple of drives later. After a far-too-casual three-and-out late in the third quarter — with a carry for backup Ja’Kobi Jackson and targets for McCuin and Phillip Bell instead of Smith — Ohio State was still leaving the door open.The major fissure required some Texas bounces.
Perhaps the Longhorns were due good fortune after the aforementioned fluky pick, but they got three incredibly lucky breaks on their first touchdown drive: First, Ryan Niblett muffed a punt, and the deflection hit Ohio State’s Inky Jones in the chest, but he couldn’t corral the ball, and Texas recovered. Then, on second-and-14 from the Texas 26, Devin Sanchez was called for an incredibly weak pass interference penalty. And after a clutch fourth-down pass from Arch Manning to Emaree Winston, Emmett Mosley V made his first catch of the evening but fumbled after a gain of 13. Safety Earl Little Jr. literally fell on the ball but couldn’t actually secure it, and Cam Coleman did instead.
Finally, after three great breaks, Manning hit Wingo to cut the deficit to 23-10.Once Texas got the burst of luck, the Horns played brilliantly. Ohio State went three-and-out, with Rutgers transfer Bo Mascoe breaking up a pass to Smith. Day burned a timeout before a crucial fourth-and-6 that Manning converted, and Hollywood Smothers scored to cap a 13-play drive and make it 23-17. Sayin made his best play of the second half in finding Nate Roberts for a big gain, but he couldn’t connect with a well-covered (by Mascoe) Smith on a third-down end zone bomb, and Connor Hawkins shanked the ensuing field goal attempt.From there, everything felt preordained.
Mosley, suddenly the go-to guy*, made a huge, 19-yard catch-and-run down to the Ohio State 1, and after the Buckeyes used both remaining timeouts, Texas scored on third-and-goal with 25 seconds left. The Horns did Ohio State a massive favor there — the clock was running, and there were 17 seconds left on the play clock at the snap — but it didn’t matter.(* Manning’s adaptability is his greatest strength at this point. Wingo and Coleman combined for just seven catches and 57 yards, but he found fortune throwing to tight ends and Mosley, so he kept right on doing it. Mosley finished with five catches for 65 yards, all during the three touchdown drives.)You can’t point to any one thing and say, “This right here is why Ohio State lost.” They were too casual early in the third quarter, Sayin performed poorly after taking a couple of shots, and Smith failed to reel in any of the last three targets thrown his way. (Two were well-covered, and one was a poor pass, and yet we still expect the best player in the country to grab them.) The defense was untouchable until a series of unlucky events, then it got fatigued and overpowered.
Day, an accomplished timeout-burner, burned a timeout he could have used later. But one way or another, the Buckeyes have lost another close one.It’s becoming a thing. In their past five games decided by 10 or fewer points, the Buckeyes have lost four. Mind you, they’ve also won 17 games in this span by an average of 38-10, and this span also includes their four-game CFP national title romp in 2024.
But it also includes the hapless, anxious 13-10 loss to Michigan that forced them to win four games in the first place. The Buckeyes’ casual, plodding brilliance works out great most of the time. But when they’ve needed urgency of late, it just hasn’t shown up for them.They’re projected favorites of double digits in each of their next four games, but in late-October Ohio State will embark on a run of three straight potentially close games, visiting Indiana and USC before hosting Oregon. They’ll need to win at least two of those three to feel good about their CFP chances, but that might actually require them to execute in clutch moments for what seems like the first time in quite a while.
Can they?Oregon’s of
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