"Game control." "Eye test." "Style points."
It’s to the point where we need Chris Farley’s legendary motivational speaker Matt Foley character to explain these terms complete with the air quotes:
"I don’t have ‘game control.’"
"I don’t pass the ‘eye test.’"
"I lack ‘style points.’"
Man, we need Farley to deliver those one-liners today. It’s become a complete farce. Yet "game control" will become the most-associated phrase with No. 7 Ohio State after its 42-27 win against Indiana on Saturday.
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The Buckeyes held a 14-13 lead at halftime, largely because of three turnovers. The Hoosiers took a 20-14 with 7:17 left in the third quarter after a 90-yard touchdown run by Tevin Coleman.
That’s going to turn into an "Ohio State struggled against Indiana" narrative that will impact the third-to-last College Football Playoff rankings on Tuesday.
In this four-team playoff race, combine a close win with a "game control" debate, and you might as well call it a loss. Baylor might jump the Buckeyes. Is that fair? Let’s properly define all those terms first.
"Style points" is still slang for blowouts. "Eye test" is a get-in-the-conversation term used by those who either watch 10-to-15 plays or simply catch the highlights. Both have been supplanted by "game control," which has quickly become today's "secret word." Everybody scream.
"Game control" has no standard definition. It’s subjective. So let’s be subjective back in its face:
"Game control" doesn’t tell you the Buckeyes trailed for 4:57 of game time against the Hoosiers before Jalin Marshall’s punt return gave the Buckeyes the lead for good. Ohio State tacked on the "style points" in the fourth quarter before Coleman added another cosmetic touchdown.
"Game control" does not tell you Indiana scored six points on those three first-half turnovers. So Ohio State limited the damage.
"Game control" expects J.T. Barrett to be Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers every day. He threw one interception on a miscommunication and the other on a tipped pass. The "eye test" reveals Barrett is not a cyborg.
"Game control" doesn’t account for the fact college football still with emotion and November is about the teams with nothing to lose as much as those with everything to gain. The Hoosiers still haven’t beaten the Buckeyes since 1989.
Yet Ohio State still won the game by 22 points, and this one will be tossed briefly into the "game control hoedown" with TCU’s 34-30 escape at Kansas last week. Which "game control" was worse? What does that even mean?
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If you think "game control" really matters in Columbus, then just look back to 2002. Ohio State in the fourth quarter against Cincinnati, Wisconsin, Purdue and Michigan and needed overtime to beat Illinois. The Buckeyes won six games by one score or less. They also pulled off the biggest upset of the BCS era by knocking off Miami in double overtime for the national championship. Why?
They had the master of real-life game control in coach Jim Tressel.
See, it’s not about the "style points," the "eye test" or the "game control." It’s about wins and losses, and Ohio State is one win away from a third straight unbeaten regular season in Big Ten play under Meyer.
Ask yourself this question: Would TCU or Baylor be favored head-to-head against Ohio State? After all, the oddsmakers are the ones that smoosh all those buzz phrases into a grinder and spit out a betting line.
Ohio State would be favored in both games. The path to the playoff still runs through a rivalry game with Michigan and a Big Ten championship game. Win those and the Buckeyes still deserve to be in, but that will depend on the answer to an overly-complex question even Farley couldn’t even ask without a straight face.
Does Ohio State "control its own destiny," or is the Buckeyes’ destiny tied to "game control?"
