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Welcome back to Buckeye Talk. I'm Nathan Barrett from Cleveland.com, and I am flying solo on this Monday episode, not really.

Actually, just for a little bit at the front, and a little bit at the end, in the middle, the usual three amigos set up me, Doug, and Steven.

We're going to be talking about a little revisionist history, a little look back at the first eight years of the cultural world playoff, and how we think those seasons would have played out based on a 12-team playoff.

CBS Sports had done a breakdown of the brackets. We went back and looked at those. What Ohio State might have done would have done in those years, if there had been a 12-team playoff, and what that tells us about what could be coming ahead when that actually now gets initiated starting after the 2024 season or for the 2024 season.

But it's coming up soon. So stick around for that middle portion. I know that some of you don't like it when it's one of his flying solo, but that's just the circumstances this weekend.

Steven's off Doug's out of town, and we still did want to talk a little bit about the game and talk a little bit about what's going on nationally. So that's what we're going to do up front.

I'm going to throw a couple of notes at you from looking back at the Ohio State game and reading up on some things and reanalyzing some things.

Middle portion, big meaty middle portion is going to be playoff talk, and then a little bit at the end me talking about a couple of things that happened nationally.

Kind of a second look at those because Steven I did touch on some of that in the post game pod on Saturday night.

First thing, I was looking at the profile focus grades. And I was just kind of comparing any we've talked before don't make too big a deal out of any one grade for a player or even a team.

It looked at it in the longer the aggregate look at the wide view, but through two games, OSU has the 40th best team defensive grade in the country.

And the reason I wanted to bring that up, we're going to talk a little bit later in the national part about the Notre Dame game and some things I saw there and some ways that that does give me a little bit of I'm not going to say it gives me pause about Ohio State, but here's the greater point that I wanted to get to.

After both games I've heard coaches I believe I think Ryan they said it after this game I'm sure either here Jim Noel said it after the first game or maybe it was sometime during the past week between the games the Notre Dame game, the Arkansas State game, but this this bend but don't break concept.

And here's been my the thing that's kind of stuck in my crawl it's just something it's just sitting in the back of my mind is that yes there's a higher floor right now that Ohio State is setting defensively then we saw through two games last year no question I want to say that right up front.

I think sometimes we get our messages kind of turned around sometimes the order that we present the things that we're going to say is important when I was a undergrad in college and I had to do like writing workshops are creative writing workshops you would always do tell us what you read your stories and then everybody in the room and have your story you'd have to go through and read like what you say what you thought was good about things and then you would say what you thought was bad.

And sometimes then that made the like soften the blow for the bad stuff that was coming you got to talk about what you liked about the thing even if you didn't like it very much you would have to come up with something to say about somebody's thing who knows what what people whether people believed what they were saying about mine or if they were just trying to make me feel better but I'm going to do the opposite here or I'm I'm just saying I think sometimes the order that we say these things in sounds like we're emphasizing the bad things that's not what we mean to do sometimes so I'm going to say up front.

Absolutely, Ohio State's defense is in better shape through two games and it was last year but absolutely I don't think there's any question about this neither these teams through two games that Ohio State has played is Oregon's offense last year that offense had more dynamic athletes and I'm and I think most importantly an architect and Joe Morehead at the top of it the Maestro who was making that happen like neither these teams had that.

So this been but don't break concept it been but to break defense coupled with a lights out offense which I think I have said has I don't care about the little what's looked clunky at times to two games this is offense is going to put up points this offense is going to go get it I'm not really that worried about that it's got the balance it's got the quarterback it's got the receivers it's got receivers aren't even playing we're going to be the receivers so they're going to be all right.

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