O-H-N-O!
Tuesday's news that Ohio State quarterback Braxton Miller will miss the upcoming season with an injury to his right (throwing) shoulder seriously deflates the Buckeyes' hopes of making the inaugural four-team College Football Playoff. Their national championship aspirations seem all but over -- 11 days before they'll open the season against Navy in Baltimore on Aug. 30.
Miller's injury also puts a serious dent in the Big Ten's chances of having a representative in the playoff. Miller, the two-time reigning Big Ten Player of the Year, was a preseason Heisman Trophy favorite and one of the country's top returning quarterbacks.
Without Miller, the Buckeyes will have a difficult time matching their success in coach Urban Meyer's first two seasons, when they won 24 games in a row before losing to Michigan State 34-24 in the 2013 Big Ten championship game and 40-35 to Clemson in the Discover Orange Bowl.
Miller, who threw for 2,094 yards with 24 touchdowns and ran for 1,068 yards with 12 more scores, was a tailor-made fit for Meyer's spread offense. Without him, the Buckeyes will probably turn to freshman J.T. Barrett, who has never played in a college game. In fact, Barrett played in only five games as a senior at Rider High School in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 2012 before injuring his knee. He redshirted at OSU last season while recovering from knee surgery.
How valuable was Miller to OSU? When news of his season-ending diagnosis broke on Tuesday, oddsmakers at the Las Vegas Hilton Sportsbook dropped the Buckeyes' odds of winning a national championship from 12-to-1 to 50-to-1. Ouch. There's a reason Las Vegas has so many glitzy buildings; the oddsmakers usually know what they're talking about.
Read the rest of Mark Schlabach's column here.
