Urban Meyer: Christain Bryant injury kept Ohio State Buckeyes from National Championship Game

Injury’s are a part of football but some are greater than others and that was the case when the Ohio State Buckeyes lost Christian Bryant to a broken leg late in the team’s win over the Wisconsin Badgers last season. The injury to one of the best safeties in the country was so damaging that according to Cleveland.com Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer believes it kept the Buckeyes from a potential National Championship Game.

"“We lost Christian Bryant last year, one of the best safeties in the country,” Meyer told coaches in a brief tangent during a speech on leadership inside the practice facility at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. “I knew deep in my heart when I saw his leg break against Wisconsin that there was a chance that we wouldn’t be able to go play for a national title.“I thought we had a national championship offense, I really did. If our guys stayed healthy, with the offensive line we had, that big tailback (Carlos Hyde), and Braxton (Miller), I thought we had a chance.“When I saw that leg snap right in front of me, it’s a tough game, on the second-to-last play against Wisconsin, I knew in my heart we had a problem. But I thought we might be able to overcome it. We did not. We did not.”"

Ohio State would be able to overcome it for the rest of the regular season as they took their perfect record into the Big Ten Championship Game vs. the Michigan State Spartans, but were unable to slow down Connor Cook and the Spartans and later Tajh Boyd, Sammy Watkins and the Clemson Tigers in the Orange Bowl.

One has to wonder how better the secondary would have looked with Bryant healthy and if Cook would have been able to have the success he had. Had Ohio State beat Michigan State they would have faced Jameis Winston and the Florida State Seminoles in the BCS Championship Game.