With everything that happened on both the Ohio State football and basketball fronts over the past two days, we needed a little extra time to digest it all before recording this week's Real Pod Wednesdays. That's why this week's episode is coming a little later on Wednesday than usual, as we talked about the latest happenings in Ohio State sports (though E.J. Liddell's decision to test the NBA waters came after we recorded) including Ohio State's football pro day and the basketball Buckeyes' addi...
Mar 31, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 82
Ohio State's basketball season came to an earlier end than expected with a first-round loss in the NCAA Tournament, leaving some questions about the state of the program after Chris Holtmann's fourth year. That's where we begin this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, as we discuss what happened to Ohio State basketball in Friday's loss to Oral Roberts, what we make of the Buckeyes' 2020-21 basketball season as a whole and why we think next year will be a crucial year for Holtmann and the Buc...
Mar 24, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 81
It's a big week for both the Ohio State men's basketball and football teams as the basketball Buckeyes begin NCAA Tournament play while the football Buckeyes begin spring practice. The men's basketball Buckeyes have momentum back on their side after making a run to the Big Ten Tournament final this past weekend, and we start by reviewing the action from Indianapolis. We liked what we saw from the Buckeyes in three wins against Minnesota, Purdue and Michigan – except for those late-game struggles...
Mar 17, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 80
Spring football is (hopefully) on the horizon, and the Big Ten Tournament is on tap this week. Ohio State is scheduled to start spring football practices on March 19, though a bit of doubt was cast over that start date when Ohio State announced Tuesday it had paused football activities for one week due to a rise in COVID-19 cases. We don't believe that pause is anything to panic about, though, and we discuss why for the first 10 minutes of this week's Real Pod Wednesdays. The plan is still for t...
Mar 10, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 79
This is March, which means two things are coming soon: The NCAA Tournament and spring football. Ohio State basketball fans might not be quite as excited for March Madness as they were a couple weeks ago because the Buckeyes have lost their last three games, including losses to Michigan State and Iowa since our last podcast, but we don't think Ohio State fans should give up hope of a deep tournament run yet. We spend the first half of this week's Real Pod Wednesdays discussing basketball once aga...
Mar 03, 2021•57 min•Ep. 78
Ohio State couldn't beat Michigan, but the basketball Buckeyes still look like one of the nation's best teams. With less than three weeks to go until Selection Sunday, that's where we start on this week's Real Pod Wednesdays, discussing the outlook for Ohio State basketball following Sunday's 92-87 loss to the Wolverines. Although there's been a lot to like about this year's Buckeyes, particularly how explosive they've been offensively, Sunday's loss exposed some problems – Ohio State's not grea...
Feb 24, 2021•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 77
The Ohio State football program got some good news last week, and the Ohio State basketball team is entering a huge week. We start this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays by discussing the football news of the week, led by Al Washington's decision to stay at Ohio State rather than become the defensive coordinator at Tennessee. We also discuss the three new hires Ohio State made last week – Todd Fitch and Paul Rhoads as analysts and C.J. Barnett as director of player development – and why each...
Feb 17, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 76
Ohio State's defensive struggles in 2020 shouldn't be blamed solely on Kerry Coombs, and there's reason to believe he can fix the Buckeyes' defense in 2021. Eleven Warriors ' own Kyle Jones joins us on this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays to explain that, as we spend about 30 minutes talking with our X's and O's expert for a deep dive on what went wrong with Ohio State's defense in 2020 and how Coombs and the Buckeyes could get things back on track. As Jones also wrote about in his most re...
Feb 11, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 75
Even though it's been an uneventful National Signing Day, there's still a lot to like about Ohio State's 2021 recruiting class. While the Buckeyes would have liked to land a commitment from four-star linebacker Raesjon Davis on Wednesday – and they certainly still want to land a commitment from five-star defensive end J.T. Tuimoloau, who isn't making his decision for another two or three months – they already have a loaded class of 21 signees, including 15 who are already on campus as midyear en...
Feb 03, 2021•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 74
Ohio State has a vacancy to fill on its coaching staff, it just might have a frontrunner at quarterback and we're ready to discuss how the Buckeyes' depth chart could stack up in 2021. We begin this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays by discussing our takeaways from Ryan Day's recent press conference, led by the news that co-defensive coordinator Greg Mattison is retiring at the end of the month. How will the Buckeyes replace Mattison? We discuss why this could be Day's most important hire ye...
Jan 27, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 73
Now that we know which key players will and won't be back, it's time to start looking ahead to Ohio State's 2021 season. The Buckeyes' 2021 roster took shape over the last few days as Justin Fields, Tommy Togiai, Josh Myers, Wyatt Davis and Shaun Wade all announced they'd be leaving early for the NFL draft, but Ohio State also got some great news as Chris Olave, Thayer Munford, Jeremy Ruckert and Haskell Garrett – among others – all announced they'd be back for another season in Columbus. We spe...
Jan 20, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 72
The national championship game didn't go well for Ohio State, but there are still plenty of positives we can take away from the 2020 season. Ohio State was blown out by Alabama, 52-24, in Monday night's national title game, and we start by discussing our takeaways from the Buckeyes' disappointing performance against the Crimson Tide. Of course, much of that discussion centers around their struggles on pass defense – naturally leading to additional discussion about what changes Ryan Day and Kerry...
Jan 14, 2021•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 71
Ohio State proved us wrong. Yes, we both picked Clemson to beat Ohio State in last week's Sugar Bowl, and we're here to admit we whiffed on our predictions. The Buckeyes didn't just beat the Tigers, they rolled to a 21-point victory, as Justin Fields had the performance of his career, Trey Sermon continued his Ezekiel Elliott-esque postseason run and Ohio State dominated both sides of the line of scrimmage. We spend the first half of this week's episode going over all the highlights from the Buc...
Jan 07, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 70
The game we've been waiting for all year long is finally here. This week's Real Pod Wednesdays is all about Friday's College Football Playoff semifinal at the Sugar Bowl, starting with an interview with Brad Senkiw, who covers Clemson for 105.5 The Roar and Clemson SI. We get Brad's insight on why Clemson fans are so confident entering this game, where the Tigers are better and worse than last season and what the biggest areas of concern for the Tigers are entering their matchup with Ohio State....
Dec 30, 2020•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 69
Ohio State is the Big Ten champion for the fourth year in a row, and is heading back to the College Football Playoff for the second year in a row, but it might not be if not for Trey Sermon. We had to start there on this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, as we broke down Sermon's record-breaking performance against Northwestern, how he improved so much after a disappointing start of the season and why we believe his success can continue in the College Football Playoff. Then, we look at the ...
Dec 23, 2020•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 68
There's a lot happening in the world of Ohio State football this week. Today is Signing Day for the recruiting class of 2021, which means the Buckeyes have now officially inked another star-studded crop of players who will join the team next season. Typically, that would take center stage this week, but because of this year's modified college football schedule, Ohio State is set to play in the Big Ten Championship Game on Saturday, with the College Football Playoff set to be chosen on Sunday. We...
Dec 16, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 67
Although there's reason to be disappointed this week, there's still plenty of feel good about. The disappointment is obvious – Ohio State won't be playing Michigan this year for the first time in over 100 years – and we couldn't start this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays anywhere but there as we reflect on what we'll miss as we don't get to watch the Buckeyes play the Wolverines this weekend. The good news for the Buckeyes, though, is they're still sitting a good position to make the Colle...
Dec 10, 2020•1 hr 43 min•Ep. 66
Just a few hours after we published last week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays, 2020 struck again. That's when the news started to leak out that Ohio State was battling positive COVID-19 cases within the program, and by the end of the week, the Buckeyes had to cancel their road trip to Illinois, marking the second time in three weeks that Ohio State has had a game canceled. So that's what where we start on this week's episode of RPW, as we discuss why Ohio State made the decision to cancel (7:50...
Dec 02, 2020•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 65
We had no shortage of ground to cover on this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays. The initial College Football Playoff rankings were revealed on Tuesday night, Ohio State just landed a pair of five-star recruits from Texas and the Buckeyes are set for an unconventional Thanksgiving weekend matchup with Illinois. But we had to start this week's episode by talking about the Buckeyes' pass defense, which has been the topic of the week after Ohio State gave up 491 passing yards against Indiana. W...
Nov 25, 2020•1 hr 32 min•Ep. 64
Let's hope this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays has a longer shelf life than last week. Just a few hours after we published last week's episode, aptly titled “What's Actually Worth Worrying About?”, we got a harsh reminder of the threat that everyone has to worry about this season when Ohio State's fourth game of the year was canceled due to a spike in positive COVID-19 tests at Maryland. We begin this week's episode by discussing the fallout of that cancellation and whether it has any eff...
Nov 18, 2020•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 63
Even though Ohio State was never in jeopardy of losing against Rutgers, most of the discussion following the Buckeyes' 49-27 win over the Scarlet Knights has been about their imperfections rather than their 3-0 start to the season. So as we started this week's episode of Real Pod Wednesdays with our look back at the Buckeyes' 22-point win against Rutgers, we spent much of the first 35 minutes of the show talking about how much Ohio State fans should actually be worried about some of the areas th...
Nov 11, 2020•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 62
For the most part, Ohio State looked like a team capable of contending for a national championship on Saturday night at Penn State. Justin Fields, Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson continued to shine , the running game took a step forward and the defensive front seven broke through in a big way to lead the Buckeyes to a 38-25 win in what might be their toughest test of the regular season. So there were plenty of positives from the trip to Happy Valley for us to discuss on this week's Real Pod Wedne...
Nov 04, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 61
“Some guys are walking around the locker room like, man, what happened? 52-17, that's a pretty good day, boys.” That's what Ryan Day said Tuesday regarding the expectations surrounding his Ohio State team right now – which caused some Buckeyes to be displeased by their performance despite a 35-point win over Nebraska in Saturday's season opener – and we're sharing a similar message on this week's Real Pod Wednesdays. While much of the narrative following Ohio State's first game has been about it...
Oct 28, 2020•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 60
We made it. Ohio State will finally play its season opener on Saturday at noon against Nebraska, so we spend this week's show talking about our expectations for the first game and what we're most intrigued to see the Buckeyes as they play an actual football game for the first time in 10 months. In the first 30 minutes of this week's show, we hit on why a mostly-empty Ohio Stadium shouldn't have much impact on the actual game but will make for a weird environment, the top matchups to watch in Sat...
Oct 21, 2020•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 59
We discuss why this season is national championship or bust for Ohio State, who the Buckeyes' most indispensable players are and more in our Season Preview episode of Real Pod Wednesdays. We also discuss our takeaways from Ohio State's most recent press conferences and turn on the "BS Meter" for some of the coachspeak we're just not buying.
Oct 14, 2020•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 58
After we finally got to watch the Buckeyes practice in person for the first time in seven months, we share our takeaways from a brief glimpse into the team's preparation for the 2020 season as well as what we've learned from the team's most recent press conferences, including why we're increasingly excited about Ohio State's offense, why we're concerned about the Buckeyes' defensive tackle depth and how Pete Werner's move to Will linebacker could impact the defense.
Oct 07, 2020•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 57
Dan and Colin draft players from Ohio State's 2020 football roster with the objective of building the best lineup to beat the other host's team in a hypothetical game. They also discuss their takeaways from Ohio State's most recent press conference, including how the running back rotation could shake out, why there could be as many as three freshmen in the receiver rotation and what Justin Fields' decision to become a vegan says about his commitment to getting even better.
Sep 30, 2020•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 56
We break down Ohio State's new(est) schedule for the 2020 season and discuss the impact of Shaun Wade announcing he'll return to Ohio State (again) and how the rest of the Buckeyes' secondary could stack up around him.
Sep 23, 2020•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 55
Big Ten football is returning in October, and Ohio State will have the chance to compete for a national championship after all. We discuss how we got here and what our expectations for the Buckeyes are now that we know we'll actually get to watch them play football this fall.
Sep 17, 2020•1 hr 32 min•Ep. 54
Ohio State's season opener should have been last Saturday, so we begin this week's episode by reflecting on what we miss about covering games at Ohio Stadium. Then, we look ahead to which new NFL Buckeyes we're most excited to watch this weekend and which current Ohio State draft prospects could be hurt the most if there's no fall season. Finally, Colin gets some frustration off his chest and rants about the Big Ten's continued indecisiveness.
Sep 09, 2020•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 53
