Colin Cowherd calls Ohio State a 'Whac-A-Mole team'

Ohio State has two games left in the 2024 regular season, and at the surface level has looked the part of a College Football Playoff contender. But FOX Sports talking head Colin Cowherd hasn’t been sold on how the Buckeyes have looked this year.

Ohio State is 9-1 with the lone defeat coming by one point at Oregon, currently undefeated and ranked No. 1. But Cowherd’s issue is less that blemish, but how Ohio State has seemingly struggled to coalesce around an identity and ascend from there.

“If Ohio State lost to Oregon and Indiana, man, that doesn’t — you’re certainly not getting a home game from me in the playoff,” Cowherd said while appearing on a podcast with ESPN’s Greg McElroy. “What do you make of Ohio State? I call them the  Whac-a-Mole team. Every time I watch them, something else pops up that worries me. First it was their defense, Oregon. Then it was their offense, Penn State. Or it was their offense against Nebraska. And then it was their quarterback play, Will Howard, against Penn State. And I’m like ‘Something’s off.’ There’s just something.”

And while Ohio State did manage to win two of the three games Cowherd brought up — 20-13 over Penn State and 21-17 over Nebraska — his overall point is that he’s not sure there’s a clear sense in Columbus of what recipe works best for Ohio State, other than betting on immense talent to triumph.

“And by the way, I felt this for the last two to three years against Michigan. Where Michigan had an absolute identity. Nick Saban’s teams: Identity. What is Ohio State, in your eyes? Beyond talented?” Cowherd asked.

McElroy didn’t disagree with that sentiment, either.

He analogized the Buckeyes as struggling to lean into being rugged and instead wanting to be a high-flying outfit.

“I think they’re a team that wants to be rugged but they still have a bunch — you know what mean? — they want to be rugged but they still have a lot sports cars,” McElroy said. They have a dirt road that you have to run in the Big Ten to win a championship and they can’t decide if they want to take their Ford F150 or their GMC Sierra or if they just want to say, ‘Forget it. Who cares if we blow an axle, lets drive the Ferrari and see what happens.’