Oller: Crew show other Columbus sports teams how to become a championship city
Columbus, City of Champion. Has a nice ring to it. Of course, it would sound even better in the plural. Champions. But for now, the plural Crew are the singular title holders in the Arch City.
And it’s not really close. The Crew’s 2-1 win over Los Angeles FC on Saturday in the MLS Cup gave the franchise its second title in four years (2020) and third overall (2008). The Blue Jackets can’t touch that with a 10½-foot Grinch pole. Neither can Ohio State football, which has one national championship (2014) the past 20 years. Ohio State men’s (2007) and women’s (1993) basketball each has played in one NCAA championship game over the past 30 years, coming up short both times. The Clippers last won the Triple-A championship in 2011.
The Buckeyes are not without their national champions over the past decade, having won titles in wrestling, women’s hockey, men's tennis, men’s volleyball, women’s rowing, synchronized swimming and pistol, but in the revenue-producing sports only the 2014 College Football Playoff championship merits a mention. (High schools are a different story, but we’re limiting this discussion to the national stage).
So three cheers for the Crew for reaching the rare championship air this season through a combination of talent, resiliency and by sticking with a strategic identity choreographed by soulful coach Wilfried Nancy.
But cheering the Crew doesn’t mean having to demean other Columbus teams. It simply means the Black and Gold broke the code on how to hoist a championship trophy, and now it’s up to the other Columbus-based teams to figure out how to follow suit.
There is no secret sauce, no one-size-fits-all methodology to championship mountain climbing. Each team, each sport has its own distinctives. That said, let’s take a stab at identifying what the Buckeyes and Blue Jackets need to do to earn their own parades.
Ohio State football
Winning a national title is never easy, even if Alabama makes it seem that way. First, there has been the not-so-simple matter of having to make the four-team playoff (soon to be 12), then needing to win two games against stiff competition to collect the ultimate prize.
That said, realistically there are only about 10 teams capable of winning it all, which improves the odds. So how to explain OSU coming close without smoking the cigar?
If true that “it all begins up front,” then it remains a mystery why the Buckeyes struggle against better teams, including Michigan. It would be one thing if they lacked talent on the offensive and defensive lines, but using the NFL draft as a barometer of top-level skill, Ohio State had five offensive lineman and two defensive lineman drafted in 2022 and 2023. Compare that to Urban Meyer’s last two seasons (2017-18), when OSU had three offensive lineman and three defensive lineman drafted. Yet beat Michigan twice.
Bigger picture, since Ryan Day took over from Meyer in 2019, the Buckeyes have had 10 offensive linemen and nine defensive linemen drafted over that five-year stretch. Over Meyer’s final five seasons, OSU had six offensive and six defensive linemen drafted. Yet beat Michigan five times.
Conclusion: Ohio State linemen, particularly on offense, are not developed to their capability (the NFL drafts on pro potential as much as college production). That is a coaching issue, possibly impacted by philosophy.
What is that philosophy? Good question. Day talks about wanting to be balanced on the run-pass ledger, but it certainly feels like OSU leans pass first; it does not always show up statistically – 398 rushing attempts vs. 376 passes this season – but Day’s aggressive offensive mindset against opponents not named Michigan suggests a belief in using the pass to set up the run.
Yet Day always stresses needing to establish the run in the Big Ten, which makes me wonder what exactly is OSU’s offensive identity? Do the linemen know?
Defensively, it gets tricky. Larry Johnson is well established as an elite recruiter and teacher, but the defensive line coach also must be held accountable for the way Michigan has run the ball against OSU in three straight losses. The Wolverines rushed for 297 yards (2021), 252 yards (2022) and 156 this season, with 122 coming after halftime when they pounded the rock without the Buckeyes defense being able to get UM off the field.
What needs to change? Defensive coordinator Jim Knowles played it safe most of the season after running more of an attacking defense in 2022. His third season needs to be the charm, where he perfectly blends aggression and caution.
Offensively, it really is simple. Find a quarterback who can keep plays alive and gain yards with his feet. Seven of the 10 quarterbacks to start national championship games since 2013 finished their seasons with at least 200 yards rushing. And two of the three who did not – Mac Jones and Jake Coker of Alabama – had difference maker Nick Saban on their side. The third, Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, finished with 177 yards. Even Cardale Jones, who took over for injured J.T. Barrett the last three games of Ohio State’s 2014 title season, ended with 296 yards (Barrett had 938).
OSU starter Kyle McCord, meanwhile, finished with negative-65 yards this year. C.J. Stroud had 108 last season and negative-20 in 2021. If you can’t run, you can’t hide behind an offensive line that struggles to protect against top-five defenses.
Ohio State men’s and women’s basketball
Ladies first. After more than a decade of underachieving, the OSU women broke through last season by advancing to the Elite Eight, where they lost by 10 points to No. 1 seed Virginia Tech. What happened to get the Buckeyes over the hump? The talent got a little better and the defense got a lot better.
Can it continue? Of course, and it should. Ohio is rich in high school talent. The bigger obstacle may be history. No Big Ten team has won an NCAA championship since 1999, when Purdue defeated Duke 62-45. (Maryland won in 2006, before the Terrapins had joined the Big Ten). The drought has to end some time, right? Iowa finished runner-up to LSU last season and has dynamic point guard Caitlin Clark back running the show. The No. 12 Buckeyes host the No. 4 Hawkeyes Jan. 21. Mark your calendar. It will be a chance for OSU to prove itself a legitimate national title contender.
As for the men, it’s not gospel, but teams that win NCAA championships typically have two or more players drafted into the NBA the same year, which has been true for eight of the past 10 champs. And it helps if one of the draft selections is a top-14 lottery pick, as has been the case for half of those past 10.
How does Ohio State’s talent stack up? Only once since 2013 have the Buckeyes had two players go in the same draft (Malaki Branham and E.J. Liddell in 2022). And six of those years OSU went without anyone getting drafted.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the 2006-2007 Buckeyes who finished NCAA runners-up had three players drafted, and Greg Oden (No. 1), Mike Conley (No. 3) and Daequan Cook (No. 21) all went in the first round.
You can see where this is headed. The best motivational coach in college basketball is nothing without top-shelf talent. Ditto having the best X’s and O’s coach in America; I’ll take NBA-quality players over an incredible game strategist any day.
Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann took a ton of heat last year for a 16-19 season that included 14 losses in 15 games. Fair criticism, but the real issue isn’t what happens on the floor but on the recruiting trail (and transfer portal). Holtmann deserves credit for bringing in Branham, Liddell, Brice Sensabaugh and Duane Washington, who went undrafted in 2021 but has played in 80 games over two NBA seasons. Still, there is pressure to keep the talent coming, and for the best players to make those around them better. Having a single one-and-done star won’t get you far in today’s game.
Columbus Blue Jackets
Where to begin? How about optimistically? Rookie Adam Fantilli looks like a franchise guy, and the Union Blue are loaded with talent in their 20s. The future would seem bright, except …
Except with the CBJ it’s always about building for the future. Brick by brick by blah, blah, blah.
My colleague, Michael Arace, has covered the handful of ups and laundry list of downs since Day 1, which is to say he knows how to separate the rebuilding from the retooling from the resetting from the eye rolling.
He wrote last month: “Starting with the failed gambit of trading for Marian Gaborik in 2013, (president of hockey operations John Davidson and general manager Jarmo Kekalainen) have neither built a team that can go deep nor fully committed to a rebuild. … In the decade since Davidson talked about “building brick-by-brick,” the overall plan has been poorly defined. The same goes for the on-ice product.”
The Blue Jackets lack an identity. Who are these guys? It’s one thing for the rest of the hockey world to see Columbus as a blip on the map, but when Columbus doesn’t know what to make of its own NHL team?
Maybe it’s time for CBJ owner John McConnell to call the Crew for advice on how to run a successful franchise. That may be harder for me to say than for the Blue Jackets to hear, given my reservations about Crew ownership. But, hey, credit where due. The Haslams (Dee, mostly) have brought not one but two MLS titles to Columbus. By comparison, McConnell has overseen one playoff series win since the Jackets arrived in 2000-2001.
It took a change of ownership for the Crew to get back on the championship track. Hmm. I wonder if LeBron likes hockey? Or Shohei Ohtani? Or Jon Rahm? Better yet, it may be time to give Taylor Swift a call. Anything to get the CBJ out of the woods and into the clear blue rarified air of becoming a champion and bringing some plural to the city.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Crew win MLS Cup, paving way for Ohio State, CBJ to follow
