Written by David Regimbal

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The Split Personality Round Table is a weekly column where I let my split personalities argue about sports topics. Sometimes I’m an optimist, sometimes I’m a pessimist, and sometimes I’m a realist. Most of the time, I’m all at once. Continue at your own risk.

Phew.

It’s been four days since Ohio State barely survived the mighty, flighty Toledo Rockets -- but it’s a different story for yours truly. Games like the one played by Ohio State Saturday can legitimately take a few years off my life, and with the number of games the Buckeyes have played in a similar fashion over the last decade, it turns out that I actually died in 2008.

Now that Toledo nearly Michigan’d us, there’s an unsteady feeling with Buckeye fans everywhere. That unsteady feeling probably comes from the closeness we nearly experienced to that fan base up north -- a vulnerability that our football team could possibly be upended by a lowly MAC squad. Shuttering at the possibility -- the round table panel will have to fight the urge to forget about last Saturday’s game and explore what we need to take away from the what actually happened.

Debate Topic: After Ohio State’s way-too-close-for-comfort victory over Toledo, is there a legitimate cause for concern about this football team? Is the season doomed or was Saturday’s contest an aberration?

Swisher (The Pessimist) Yeah, we’re doomed. There were a lot of glaring issues with this football team that we chose to ignore during the Akron game because of its sexy 42-0 score. Let’s dig in, shall we?

First of all, the coaching is an issue. I’ve stated in the past that I like Luke Fickell as a coach, but only when he’s a defensive coordinator or doing Happy Gilmore impressions. The Ohio State University is not a place where you should be taking your first steps into the head coaching world, and frankly, he’s not ready for it. His decision to keep Bauserman in despite the number of Bauser-bombs he dropped on the A-deck is a perfect example of that.

People say losing Tressel won’t be as bad as it could’ve been if the existing coaching staff had left as well. While that’s true, people don’t realize that the one man who turned the offense from the boring snooze fest it was in 2007-08 to the point-producing one we saw last year, Darrell Hazell, is now the head coach at Kent State. That means there’s no one to balance out the Jim Bollman-ness of this offense. These are bad things.

Personally, I hope Gordon Gee is off somewhere with Urban Meyer recreating that adorable scene from Lady and The Tramp -- but rather using bacon instead of spaghetti because damn it, this is still football we’re talking about here.

Also, we could talk about the complete lack of a pass rush the defensive front is getting, and how embarrassing it is that two MAC squads have held their own in regards to a pocket presence against the Buckeyes -- but the defense is doing all the talking themselves (or lack of talking, I guess). We could talk about Bauser-balls throwing passes over the heads of open-receivers to the ghost of DeVier Posey. We could talk about Toledo’s defense holding Ohio state to less than 125 yards rushing. We could, but I’m just too pissed.

The Buckeyes are in trouble.

Figz (The Optimist)   Come on now -- you’d think after a decade of doing this, we’d all be aware of how this show plays out.

What happened this past Saturday against Toledo has been a reoccurring dream for the Buckeyes since they won the National Championship. In ‘02, it was Cincinnati. In ‘03, there was Bowling Green. A year later, Marshall put the fear of God in the fan base. The Ohio Bobcats joined the party in 2008, and Navy got in on the fun in ‘09.

For some reason, the Buckeyes occasionally struggle with outmatched preseason opponents. It’s almost as surprising as the reaction the team gets from its fan-base, as if this isn’t just a rerun. There’s no reason to panic right now. Four of the five teams I listed above won a Big Ten Championship and played in a BCS bowl game.

Now -- let’s address Swisher’s so called issues. The coaching is bad? Seriously? How can you possibly say that after everything went down this summer? Think about it -- you could take the best football coach in America and put him on Ohio State’s sideline and yeah, things might be better. But if you put him in Fickell’s situation, where arguably five of the most important pieces of the offense aren’t available (one of them permanently), then how could you possibly expect them to execute crisply? Can you imagine how bad the Browns would be if you took away Joe Thomas, Peyton Hillis, Colt McCoy, Montario Hardesty and... well let’s say Ben Watson or whoever the most reliable pass catcher is? Oh, and then on top of that, what if we took Joe Haden away for the first two games of the season? How many points would the Browns lose those first two games by? Is a hundred billion a fair number? I think so.

I absolutely believe Saturday was a fluke. It was the week after one of the most emotional home-openers in Ohio State history and the week before the most important non-conference game of the year. Why are people ignoring this?

Ohio State lacked a pass rush? Do you think the team missing its best pass rusher (Nathan Williams) for the entire game, and its second best pass rusher (John Simon) for half of it due to injury, had anything to do with that?

How about getting the proverbial wind knocked out of your sails when the Ohio State football team learned the day before the game that Hall, Howard and Brown were still suspended? You can’t tell me that wouldn’t impact the team in a negative way when they see  Miami players down there getting free freaking lap-dances with only a one-game suspension as penalty.

And why did Swisher choose to ignore the fact that Braxton got dinged up in practice late last week before he destroyed the coaches decision to keep him out of the game?

Everything is fine, people. You watch -- Ohio State will waltz into Miami and look at the other sideline with the intensity of this child here on our right and say, “Tonight. You.”

Franky (The Realist)   ...is under the weather this week -- suffering from a horrible case of seb...ster...kin. Sebsterkin is a totally legit medical issue. Look it up, but seriously don’t look it up or you’ll get it.

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