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The Good morning Bucknows. Welcome to the Bucknuts Morning 5 here on Wednesday, February 11th, 2026.

I am Dave Biddle, very happy, joined by Steve Hellwagon.

We're going to bounce around a little bit on the show today.

We're going to start off talking about football. So the first four years of the Ryan Day-era's head coach, Ohio State, had a top-10 offense nationally every year, total offense. One year they finished first, they're like first, fourth, they had one that was in the ninth, and they're like fifth. So every year, they weren't just top ten. their top nine the the first four years and they have not been a bad offense by any means the last three years you know but

they finished they dropped all the way to what 48 i believe in 2023 that was a calm accord year they won

the national championship in 2024 had like right around you know the number 24 total offense

and then it's past year number 26 total offense. So still good. Still good. Can they get back to being a top 10 offense this year? Steve and I are going to get into that. And then basketball. Big game tonight. Hopefully they beat USC men's basketball team, 6.30 at the shot. If they happen to miss the tournament, is it time to move on from

Jake Dibler? Would they actually do that? And then who would Steve and I want to get if they did move on from Jake Deeb. Now, what we want to see happen is Jake Dibler be very successful. We all like Jake Dibler. He's a great guy. So we're going to get in all that. Steve, good to see you this morning, my friend. Yes, Dave. What's going on in the world?

Oh, we're warming up, man. I was like literally sitting outside tanning yesterday. Yes. Not even joking. What a beautiful day it was. My goodness. And you know what? The snow outside here's melted quite a bit. I'm looking out and seeing grass again. Holy cow. It's insane. It's insane. Yeah.

Our show is not populating on our Bucknuts board on our Twitter feed, but we got to figure that out.

Anyway, all right. It looks like everybody is in here from YouTube and Facebook, so that's good.

For some reason, it's not populating on Twitter right now, but let's get into it.

All right. Julian Sand coming back.

This is the first time we've had their starting quarterback back since 2022 with C.J. Stroud coming back. Again, not that long, four years ago, but still starting quarterback back. And he was so damn accurate as a redshirt freshman. Like he's going to be better as a third year sophomore. you have perhaps the best wide receiver in Ohio State history coming back for his final year,

Jeremiah Smith, and they've got some decent depth there, despite losing all the guys they lost, because they got Brandon Ennis, Chris Henry Jr. Got a couple of transfers with Kyle Parker and Devin McHughan, guys like Philip Bell and Desi Jones on the come-up. They have Dr. Quaid and Guilford can play. So I still like, you know, even though they lost, they don't have quite the depth they usually do, I still love that wide receiver room. Bo Jackson back at running back, you know, getting Jacoby Jackson in the transfer portal. Isaiah West coming back. I love this offensive line, Steve. I know the way the season ended,

but I just think these guys are so veteran. 91 career starts between them. I'm bullish on the

offensive line. Bringing Arthur Smith in. I say yes, they're going to have a top 10 offense this

year. Hopefully they can have a top five offense, Steve. Yeah, I agree with you, Dave.

I think that there's only one direction to go and that's up.

I think obviously you take Cardinal Tate out of the situation.

It does impact things a little bit.

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