Jim Naveau: It’s season saving time for Ohio State

As the shadows covered more and more of the outfield at the original Yankee Stadium during a September day game Yankees Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra offered this observation: “It gets late early out there,” Berra said. That would be a good way to describe Ohio State’s football season. It got late early for the Buckeyes. They expected their defining moment to come in the College Football national championship game in January, or at worst, maybe in a national semifinal. But with a 6-2 overall record and being No. 12 in this week’s first College Football Playoff rankings, Saturday’s game against Oregon at Ohio Stadium and the three games after it against Northwestern, at Nebraska and against Michigan have become as big as any games on the Buckeyes’ schedule. Quite simply, they are fighting for their playoff survival. A third loss would take OSU out of the playoff committee’s top 12 teams and probably keep them out for the remainder of the season. Then OSU’s only path to the playoff wou