Ohio State has its normal wardrobe that rarely deviates. Then it makes the College Football Playoff and gets to dress up as an underdog. This is the Buckeyes’ Halloween, the one time when they can step out of Big Ten behemoth character.
They have been favored in 98 of their last 104 games. The only exceptions have been Playoff games: Alabama and Oregon in 2014; Clemson in ’19; Clemson and Alabama in ’20; and now against Georgia in the Peach Bowl semifinal.
Ohio State has been pretty good in that rare role, winning three times and losing twice, with a 2014 national championship as part of its underdog body of work. And if there is any scenario from that Playoff past that it would love to replicate in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium Saturday night, the ’14 semifinal upset of Alabama is it.
