Ah, OK. That's where my brain went after you post, but then I started to second guess myself.
But yeah, it absolutely could be Ohio State/Indiana, which would be the weirdest fucking CCG I can remember. I think Cignetti is a fantastic coach, but, and again, jmo, Ohio State would beat them, too. The talent-gap is just too wide, unless Cignetti has just some unfathomable game plan with luck introduced.
But remember, Oregon beat Ohio State last year, and we saw what happened when they met again. That was with Dillon Gabriel, 1.2k rusher Jordan James, Tez Johnson, a healthy Evan Stewart, Traeshon Holden, TE Terrance Ferguson, 1st rd OL Josh Conerly, Jr., 1st rd DT/DL Derrick Harmon, DL Jamaree Caldwell, S Jeffrey Bassa, DE Jordan Burch, etc. That was an absolute 20 pt beating in Eugene again.
Just looking at talent recruiting rankings disparity, fOSU has double the amount of 5* talent than the second leader, which is Oregon at #2 and Penn State at #3. 4* talent it's Penn State, fOSU, Oregon. My point being is that 5*/4* talent makes all the difference (unless your name happens to be James Franklin, which if that's the case, CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR NEW $50M LOTTERY WINNINGS), which is why even if the Buckeye play Indiana, I don't think it will be some blowout because of Cignetti, but fOSU will win by 2 TDs.
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Texas, for whatever reason, is the only team to have held both Jeremiah Smith (6-43), and Carnell Tate (2-59) in check (aside from a blown assignment which gave Tate most of his 2 catches for 59 yards all game with his 40 yd TD. Credit is due where it's due). I don't know if it's just talent meets similar/comparable talent (which I believe Littleton is) regardless of recruiting rankings (we did have Thorpe winner Barron in 2024), but it was Muhammad/frosh Littleton (absolute stud) covering Smith this year, and Kobe Black/Taaffe tasked with covering Tate, scheme, whatever the case.
If you haven't gotten to watch Longhorns football, tuck away the name Gaceon Littleton. He'll be our next Thorpe winner before he heads to the first rd.