Before the season, Ohio State received a slew of high praise from media pundits and former coaches like Urban Meyer and Jim Tressell. Now, with the season firmly underway, the team is getting its flowers from its opponents.
Marshall head coach Charles Huff is the latest of the opposing coaches to be astounded by what he has seen on film from the Buckeyes.
“I’ll be honest, this is probably the best team I’ve seen on film ever,” Huff said during a press conference on Tuesday. “I’m not just saying that to get everyone excited; they’re really good. They’re better than the (2011) national championship team we played at Alabama.”
Huff was the offensive quality control coach at Vanderbilt during the 2011 season, in which Alabama dominated its way to a national championship. Huff and the Commodores were blown out 34-0 against the Crimson Tide.
The Alabama team that Huff used as a comparison to Ohio State finished the 2011 campaign 12-1, only losing one game in overtime 9-6 to LSU, and all of the team’s wins that year, including a 21-0 rematch win in the national championship over LSU, came by at least 16 points. In short, it is quite the company for Ohio State to be in.
Huff specifically mentioned the team’s speed, athleticism and talent across the roster as the aspects of the team that set it apart from others.
“When you look at across the board, I’m not saying every player is the best player in the country, but collectively they have a really good, explosive, fast, strong, physical football team,” Huff said. “You look at what they’ve done to build their team, $20 million name, image and likeness resources invested into this team, they’ve been able to go out and acquire some of the best talent in the country.”
The Buckeyes haven’t exactly played the strongest of opponents to this point in the season, but so far, they have done everything expected of them going against Group of Five opponents. Huff made note of this during his press conference while saying his team would have to play their best game for 60 minutes to like the result.
Huff, who said he was extremely excited about the challenge to go into Ohio Stadium, also joked about the difference in scale between the Ohio State NIL fund and the Marshall NIL fund.
“I would love to have some of those guys from Ohio State too, so if they want to transfer on down, we’ve got Tudor’s biscuit NIL all-you-can-eat,” Huff said. “So if any of those guys that run really fast at Ohio State like Tudor’s biscuits, I promise you, all-you-can-eat, all day, if you transfer here.”
