Coming into the game against Iowa Saturday, Ohio State had two missions in order to keep pace for a potential spot in the BCS title game: win and win impressively enough to sway voters.
Well, one out of two ain’t bad.
The good news for the Buckeyes is that they were able to pull away from the Hawkeyes courtesy of a 24-7 advantage in the second half, posting its 19th straight win by the score of 34-24. The not-so-good news was that half came after OSU looked positively underwhelming in falling behind the visiting Hawkeyes 17-10 after two quarters of play.
Head coach Urban Meyer has preached that his team can only control what they do and is focused solely on the next opponent, not BCS implications. Meyer and his charges, though, are not only battling its next opponent on the field but fighting perception off of it: the perception that the Buckeyes’ non-conference schedule was pastry-soft and the conference slate is not far behind. And that, simply put, the Buckeyes just aren’t that good of a football team despite the fact that they are on a historic run of wins.
The way OSU played in the first half did nothing to help the perception. Neither did Northwestern, one of the so-called quality wins for the Buckeyes this season, going down in defeat a third straight game.
The stark reality for Ohio State is that, even if they run the streak to 24 straight, they would fall behind the SEC championship game winner... and an unbeaten Oregon... and an unbeaten ACC champion in the BCS title-game pecking order. That’s the situation facing OSU, regardless of if anyone connected to the program wants to publicly acknowledge it.