And In That Corner … The No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes begin their title chase against No. 5 Notre Dame

The problem with opening the season with such a highly-touted matchup as the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Notre Dame Irish is, eventually, every talking point from any given reporter gets repeated ad nauseam. To inject some fresh thoughts into this space’s previews of Saturday’s top-five matchup (7:30 ET; ABC), let’s ask an Ohio State beat writer for some insights into the Buckeyes.

Let’s turn to Joey Kaufman of The Columbus Dispatch …

DF: My memory isn’t wrong, is it? You were covering USC for the Register for a while, right? How long were you there and when did you jump to the Ohio State beat?

JK: Your memory is right. I was there at the onset of the Clay Helton era, covering the Trojans from 2016-18. Oddly enough, the last time I was in the L.A. Coliseum was when Notre Dame visited to end the regular season in 2018. USC was fighting for bowl eligibility, trying to spoil the Irish Playoff ambitions, but the crowd was mostly hoping it was Helton’s last game. The disgruntled fanbase even raised money for an airplane that flew around the stadium before kickoff, carrying a banner that asked for Helton to be fired. Pretty sparse crowd too. End of a losing season, plus a renovation that wiped out a section of seats. Pretty weird scene. 

If I can dwell on that for a moment on a bit of a tangent, how would you compare and contrast the two programs, big-picture? Emphasis on the big picture and not just on that odd 2018 scene I best remember for the construction trailers serving as a temporary press box.

You see the ripple effects of their conference’s TV contracts. The gap in resources is noticeable. When Helton would make in-home recruiting visits out of state, he flew on Allegiant. That isn’t happening with Ryan Day.

That gulf