How Gene Smith, Ohio State view hypothetical on-campus playoff game

COLUMBUS — The question is purely hypothetical for Ohio State.

If there is an actual expanded playoff that includes on-campus sites, if there are definitive dates deep into December and if the Buckeyes have fallen short of the goals that would allow them to avoid worrying about the situation at all — then, yes, Gene Smith has considered alternatives elsewhere.

Considering how strongly he suggested the Buckeyes would look at taking a matchup out of the Horseshoe and into a neutral, weather-controlled site, clearly the veteran athletic director has already given it plenty of thought. From that perspective, it might potentially even be safe to call that the likely outcome for Ohio State.

Of course, no parts of that scenario currently exist, so Smith didn’t have to make any kind of definitive decision on Wednesday morning in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. But it was another glimpse at just how many competing interests are jostling to make a 12-team, on-campus College Football Playoff an actual reality in the first place.

“I’m still going to continue to look at the calendar and how that works,” Smith said. “But right now, based on what I understand with how the calendar would be, I would probably recommend that we go to Indianapolis. … I want a clean environment. I don’t want a hard surface for the players. I know the fans loved it, thinking that maybe it’s snowing in the Shoe and we’re playing whoever [from the south]. But that surface is a whole new ballgame.

“I would prefer to have the indoor elements and have a clean field. If it was this year, I would want [quarterback] C.J. [Stroud] to have good weather, it’s just that simple. … While it’s difficult to take it away from the Shoe, I still think that’s the right thing to do for the players in the game.”

The fact that half of them would likely be accustomed to the chilly, possibly snowy elements in the Horseshoe would seemingly enhance the home-field advantage for Ohio State, which would theoretically be a much bigger deal in a single-elimination setting. Beyond that, forcing fair-weather programs north late in the season has long been a discussion point in the endless bragging-rights comparison between the Big Ten and the SEC, and the possibility of on-campus sites opened the door to actually settling that on the field.

Maybe that will still end up happening when the power-broker bickering over playoff expansion inevitably gets settled. But if nothing else, Smith was at least setting the table that maybe it won’t.

Just to pluck one example out of the toboggan, fellow conference members like Wisconsin or Michigan would also face hurdles like the Buckeyes in staging games in stadiums that aren’t fully winterized to protect both players and fans much past the end of the regular season in November.

“Really I want that flexibility for the league,” Smith said. “We want the flexibility to go indoors. It’s not like it’s automatic. Now, you have to come up with a strategy to predetermine that at some point in time, because you have to cut the deal with the facility and do all the operations, ticket sales, all that. So it becomes a time when a lot of that is going to be date dependent. I’m kind of anxious to see how this playoff schedule actually ends up. When will it actually start? So, that’s critical. That’s critical.

“We may look at the historical calendar and say: It’s OK to play in Columbus, we don’t need to go do a deal that particular year with [Indianapolis].”

Whether or not the Buckeyes have already been there could wind up being a key factor as well.

Ohio State didn’t get to Indy for the Big Ten championship game last year after losing to rival Michigan. By almost all accounts inside and outside the program, that meant the entire season had already been chalked up as a disappointment. Would a playoff date in the Horseshoe in December have changed that? Again, that’s yet another a hypothetical that can’t truly be answered right now.

And in an ideal world, Gene Smith won’t ever have to address the other one either.

“We’ll just have to pray that we’re in that situation,” Smith said. “Or pray that we get a bye, and that’s not a part of it.”

Either way, the stay-or-go debate is purely hypothetical.

Until all of those dozens of ifs are decided, Ohio State might never face a decision about spending December in the Horseshoe at all — even if it does have a backup plan already in mind.