The Ohio State Buckeyes finished 12-1, but there were portions of the season where they looked less than impressive. That undoubtedly contributed to their exclusion from the College Football Playoff on Sunday.
After it was made public that the Buckeyes would be absent from the playoff, coach Urban Meyer admitted one key factor that made Ohio State weaker in 2018: the injury and subsequent departure of star defensive lineman Nick Bosa.
Bosa got hurt in the Buckeyes’ third game of the season against TCU and, after several weeks out, announced he’d skip the rest of the season to prepare for the NFL Draft. The Ohio State defense subsequently regressed, culminating in a 29-point loss at Purdue.
On Sunday, Meyer admitted that Bosa’s absence impacted the Buckeyes both on and off the field.
Meyer: "When Nick Bosa went down, that changed our team. … I know he was a great player. but he was more than that. He was a rock."
— Ari Wasserman (@AriWasserman) December 2, 2018
It’s fair to ask if the Buckeyes might be a playoff team today if not for Bosa’s injury. We’ll never know, but he was shaping up to be that dominant of a player, and from what Meyer says, a major locker room figure as well.
