After watching Michigan and Ohio State return a senior-laden roster and win a national championship, Penn State is hoping to repeat their formula.
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No rest for the National Champions
The Ohio State Buckeyes are the 2024 college football national champions. Hopefully they celebrated for the first 24 hours, because there’s no rest in today’s version of college football.
The plane tires were barely on the tarmac at John Glenn International Airport, and Ryan Day, Ross Bjork, and the Ohio State administration were put to work trying to retain key members from their roster and coaching staff. The national championship trophy hadn’t made it to the trophy case, and the Buckeyes were playing defense again, as reports released that star wide receivers Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate were being offered $4.5 million and $1 million respectively.
On the defensive side of the ball, they had to wait for NFL Draft decisions from Sonny Styles and Davison Igbinosun, two of the only starters on the defense not guaranteed to head to the NFL, and beat out offers for corner Jermaine Matthews, who at seasons end was an integral part of the three-man rotation at cornerback.
The poaching didn’t stop at the players, as defensive coordinator Jim Knowles was rumored to have at least three jobs — Penn State, Notre Dame, and Oklahoma — leading to Bjork and Day offering him a contract that would make him the highest-paid defensive coordinator in the sport. Depending on who you believe, the contract wasn’t enough, and there may have been other tension amongst the coaching staff leading Knowles to skip the national championship celebration and accept a three-year deal worth over $9 million dollars to be Penn State’s defensive coordinator.
If only it stopped there. The NFL coaching cycle is wrapping up, which means it’s time to start hiring coordinators. After leading Ohio State to a national championship, offensive coordinator Chip Kelly is one of the hottest names on the market.
When you win, everyone wants a piece of the magic, but before he had a chance to breathe a sigh of relief, Day was tasked with fighting to retain coaches and players alike. The fight isn’t over, but the celebration is as the Buckeyes are forced to move on if they want a chance to repeat in 2025.
Day may lose both coordinators, but he still won. He has a national championship and he kept Jeremiah Smith. If you asked him, I think he’d say that’s a successful first week back in Columbus.
Natty or Bust
For almost the entirety of the last two decades, the national championship resided in the south. Ohio State broke through in 2014, but it couldn’t repeat and everyone else in the north struggled to keep up with the recruiting advantages found in the south.
That stopped in 2023, when Michigan’s collective stepped up to retain a large number of their draft-eligible players, including running back Blake Corum. The 2023 Michigan team went undefeated en route to winning a national championship.
After watching their most hated rival win a title, Ohio State decided to ‘reload the clip’ bringing back almost the entirety of their 2021 recruiting class who couldn’t leave Columbus without beating Michigan, winning the Big Ten, or becoming national champions. For the second year in a row, the formula worked, as Ohio State beat Notre Dame in the 2024 national championship.
Penn State hopes to be the third-straight Big Ten team to follow this formula to a natty, as all of their stars came back outside of eventual first-round picks Abdul Carter and Tyler Warren.
Quarterback Drew Allar made his intentions known before their run in the playoffs ended, but both running backs, Kaytron Allen and Nick Singleton, soon followed. Defensive linemen Dani Denis-Sutton and Zane Durant are returning as well, making it clear their intentions to compete for a natty.
The good news continued, as Ohio State’s defensive coordinator Jim Knowles is heading to State College to replace former defensive coordinator Tom Allen. With all of this returning talent and a national champion coach leading the defense, a good year alone is no longer acceptable for the Nittany Lions.
Like Ohio State in 2024, its national championship or bust, or Happy Valley will turn into unhappy valley quickly.
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