COLUMBUS, Ohio — On Dec. 28, 2019, Ohio State football’s season ended with a gut-wrenching 29-23 loss to Clemson in the College Football Playoff semifinals at the Fiesta Bowl. That night in Glendale, Arizona, touched off plenty of speculation about the future. How high in the NFL Draft would Buckeyes Chase Young and Jeff Okudah be taken? Would OSU quarterback Justin Fields or Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence win the 2020 Heisman Trophy? Would Chris Olave, Shaun Wade and other Buckeyes use playoff disappointments as motivation for the next season. No one in college football had begun discussing coronavirus. Yet three days after that game, health officials in Wuhan, China, reported a cluster of pneumonia cases associated with a seafood market there. The actual cause of the illnesses later took on its own name — COVID-19. In early to mid-March, the virus quickly moved from distant curiosity to a complete interruption of…
Continue Reading: Ohio State football’s coronavirus timeline: Five months that led to a canceled season
