COLUMBUS, Ohio — Jayden Fielding is not the reason Ohio State lost to Indiana, 13-10, in the Big Ten Championship Game.

He didn’t fail to convert multiple red zone trips thanks to questionable play-calls or an inability to execute those calls.

He didn’t throw an interception on the opening drive or make mistakes in pass pro that led to Julian Sayin being sacked a career-high five times.

He didn’t lose one-on-one battles in coverage, paving the way for the Hoosiers’ third-best receiver to have the first 100-yard receiving game by an opposing wide receiver all season.

Fielding wasn’t responsible for any of the things. But it’s his inability to make a 27-yard field goal with 2:51 left to play that ultimately decided the game’s outcome. And it’s not the first time he’s failed to rise to the occasion.

“It’s like everybody else,” head coach Ryan Day said. “If everybody does their job, we talk about 10 units doing their job, we’re gonna win every game we play. When you don’t do your job, and you’re coming up short, you’ve gotta get that fixed. It’s the same thing with him as well.”

Fielding’s job description lives in hyperbole. He can be a hero when he seals a 34-23 win over Notre Dame in the national title game. He can be public enemy No. 1 when he misses two chipshots in a rivalry game at home that end up being The Game’s deciding factor.

Whether it’s fair or not, how he’s viewed often comes down to what he does when his skillset is an absolute necessity and not just what he does on a typical basis. Converting 45 of 56 field goals (84.2%) shows a level of consistency, even if it’s not perfection. But nobody cares about that when a large portion of the nine misses are costing this team games.

Five of his misses don’t show a person who’s consistent. They show a person who can’t handle the pressure of the moment.

In 2023, he missed a 45-yarder that should’ve capped off a four-play drive against Penn State. It would’ve put the Buckeyes up 23-6, essentially putting the game away. Instead, it at bare minimum kept the door open in a game that eventually ended 20-12.

Later that season, Day elected to run down the clock to its final seconds on the road against Michigan, tasking Fielding to make a 52-yard kick even if he’d never even attempted one in the game, hoping to cut the Wolverines’ lead to 14-13 heading into halftime. But he missed it in a game, OSU eventually lost 30-23.

He’d later miss a 48-yard field goal in a Cotton Bowl — the site of OSU’s next game — against Missouri that prevented the team from taking a 6-0 lead in a game where it was already down to its third-string quarterback. The Buckeyes would eventually lose that game 14-3.

Against Nebraska in 2024, he missed a 42-yard field goal in a game where the offense often looked flat. Not extending a 14-3 lead didn’t end up mattering in a game where the Buckeyes won 21-17, but the Cornhuskers, at the bare minimum, had the ball last with a chance to execute a game-winning drive.

Missed field goals of 38 and 36 in a 13-10 loss to Michigan last year were the ultimate breaking point. Those misses were the cherry on top of what was a bad showing by anyone not associated with the defense.

Now he’s added a missed 27-yard field goal that’s cost Ohio State a conference title, the top seed in the College Football Playoff, and Sayin the Heisman Trophy.

So where does Day go from here? That’s one too many examples of a player not executing a job where success vs. failure shows up directly on the scoreboard.

Fielding did not lose last year’s Michigan game or this year’s Big Ten Championship Game. The fact that those games came down to whether he could make a field goal or not is a reflection of the failures by other units. If in either of those games, or at any other time, Fielding missed a field goal if Ohio State had just done its job offensively, then his flaws wouldn’t even be a talking point.

But that’s also the life of a kicker. You live a life where you’re either the hero or the villain with no middle ground. The question is whether he’s built for this and, more importantly, whether Day still thinks he is.

“There’s a reason why we put him in there,” Day said. “We’re not putting guys in the game that we don’t believe in. Once we put you in the game, we believe that you’re gonna do your job, and it’s your job to make sure that gets done.

“Just like everybody else, he’d gotta take a hard look at it and make sure everything he’s doing is on point.”