After crushing No. 1 Oregon 41-21, the No. 8 seed Buckeyes have a date with No. 5 Texas in Dallas next week.
How did they earn that opportunity?
Let’s take one more look back at the Rose Bowl and peak ahead to the Cotton.
This one had everything
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Ohio State thrived on throwing the ball up to its bigger, faster, stronger players, but the Buckeyes did not simply rely on raw talent alone — as they can in seven or eight games a year — to beat Oregon on Jan. 1 (or Tennessee in the first round).
In the first two playoff games, Ryan Day and his coaching staff have maximized their talent by creating opportunities for Jeremiah Smith, Emeka Egbuka, et al to get open and let quarterback Will Howard get them the ball in space.
Day talked about the Buckeyes creating their own momentum in Pasadena, and they did just that.
The offensive line is still not going to be mistaken for a vintage Urban Meyer (let alone Woody Hayes) Ohio State outfit, but the coaches managed to put them in more advantageous positions, too, with more diverse blocking schemes and by forcing teams to respect the threat of the pass.
That is why you hire someone like Chip Kelly to be offensive coordinator. Sure, he’s known as an offensive guru, but he is also someone who knows how to do more with less — including when he was the head coach at Oregon from 2009-12.
Defensive coordinator Jim Knowles also deserves lots of credit
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
He was hired three years ago to fix a defense that was helpless more often than not, and he has done that. Still, his units hadn’t gotten it done in big games, and the loss to Oregon earlier in the year brought criticism for being a little too basic.
Knowles, like Kelly, made his bones manufacturing effective units with less raw material at previous stops (Oklahoma State, Duke), and he seemed to struggle with doing too much or too little to maximize the Buckeyes in the first 2.5 years.
That has not been the case since the middle of the season. He may have simplified the tasks for his players, but the scheme is much more diverse. That makes the Buckeyes more difficult to attack, and it creates opportunities for those individual talents like Caleb Downs, Jack Sawyer and J.T. Tuimoloau to make plays.
Those guys can make many coaches look smart, but it’s still up to the coach to figure out how to let them.
And this time there would be no repeat of the games earlier in the year when they got out of the gate slowly nor the Georgia game two years ago when they coughed up a huge lead in the fourth quarter.
Now what?
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Texas awaits in the Cotton Bowl, which will be played at AT&T Stadium (a.k.a. “Jerryworld” for Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones) in Arlington, Texas.
The Longhorns lost the SEC Championship Game to Georgia, dispatched Clemson in the first round of the CFP then survived a scare from Arizona State in a quarterfinal game at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta.
Quarterback Quinn Ewers, a Texas native who began his career at Ohio State, gets lots of headlines, but the Longhorns are led by an elite defense.
While the Buckeyes led the nation in scoring defense and total defense heading into the postseason, Texas is right behind them at No. 2 and 3, respectively.
Ewers has thrown for 3,189 yards and 29 touchdowns with 11 interceptions this season and ranked No. 6 in the SEC in passing efficiency in the regular season.
Of course playing the Longhorns in their backyard will present a challenge, but Ohio State has some happy memories at that stadium. The Buckeyes beat Oregon there to win the 2014 National Championship and topped USC in the 2017 Cotton Bowl but lost to Missouri to conclude last season.
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