The victory over the Longhorns may be Ryan Day’s best to date.
Ohio State is on a truly unprecedented run in the College Football Playoff.
The Buckeyes have already defeated five of the top eight teams this season based on the final committee rankings on selection Sunday, with three of those wins coming in the postseason — No. 1 Oregon, No. 3 Texas and No. 7 Tennessee. Ryan Day’s group defeated two such teams during the regular season in No. 4 Penn State and No. 8 Indiana, and will have to knock off one more in No. 5 Notre Dame in order to take home a national title.
This program has already made history by winning four games against AP Top-5 opponents in a single season, becoming one of only four teams ever to do so (2019 LSU, 1967 USC, and 1943 Notre Dame). If Ohio State manages to emerge victorious against the Fighting Irish, they will become the first team in college football history to achieve five wins over AP Top-5 opponents in a single season, as Notre Dame finished at No. 3 in the final AP Poll.
Needless to say, this run by the Buckeyes has been incredibly impressive. Ryan Day, who received a mountain of criticism following the loss to Michigan — and rightfully so — has his team playing its best football at the best possible time. Ohio State’s head coach was able to make huge changes, once on defense after the loss to Oregon in October and again on offense following the loss to the Wolverines, and it has resulted in the Buckeyes earning a trip to Atlanta.
Ohio State hardly had to break a sweat this postseason until the Cotton Bowl, piling up huge leads early on against both Tennessee and Oregon before coasting to 42-17 and 41-21 victories, respectively. Texas gave the Buckeyes a real fight, and the Longhorns had a first-and-goal at the OSU 1-yard line with a chance to tie the game with just four minutes remaining. Jack Sawyer’s heroics on a sack-fumble, scoop-and-score touchdown ultimately earned the Buckeyes a 28-14 victory and a spot in the national title game.
That being said, while the Cotton Bowl was Ohio State’s closest margin of victory in its three College Football Playoff games, the victory over Texas was Ryan Day’s most impressive performance yet.
During Day’s tenure at Ohio State, the Buckeyes have basically only won games against true championship-caliber teams one way: jumping on top big early and riding that momentum to the finish line. That model has been accentuated by these recent wins over the Vols and the Ducks, but the same was true in the 2020 Fiesta Bowl vs. Clemson, where Ohio State led 35-14 at half, and against No. 7 Michigan State in 2021, with the Buckeyes jumping out to a 21-0 lead after the first quarter and a 49-0 lead by halftime.
Outside of two close wins over highly-ranked Notre Dame teams, who went on to finish those seasons with three and four losses, Day’s teams have never really won a talent-equated game the way they did on Friday night. Ohio State played tight with Oregon in 2021 and this regular season, but ultimately lost both. They played tight with Clemson in the 2019 Fiesta Bowl and Georgia in the 2022 Peach Bowl, but came up short. The Buckeyes played a four-quarter game against No. 3 Michigan in 2023, but again could not emerge victorious.
In the Cotton Bowl, everything had the markings of another shortcoming against a championship caliber team. Ohio State shot itself in the foot repeatedly with dumb penalties, the offense got conservative at times, and the bounces weren’t going their way for three quarters. When Texas tied the game late in the third quarter and the Buckeyes responded by losing five yards and punting on their ensuing possession, it felt like a movie we had all seen before.
This time around, Ohio State rose to the occasion and created a new ending.
The Buckeyes got the ball back in a tie game to begin the fourth quarter. Ohio State’s offense, rather than going into a shell and playing it safe, attacked the Longhorns through the air, throwing nine-straight passes to begin the drive and getting down to Texas’ 41-yard line. Will Howard converted a big 4th-and-2 with his legs, getting his team down into the red zone, and five plays later Quinshon Judkins punched it in from a yard out to give Ohio State a lead that it would not relinquish.
That score was not the final nail in the coffin, however, as Ohio State’s defense looked like it too could suffer a fate similar to so many fourth quarters against top-tier opponents.
The biggest fault of the Jim Knowles era in Columbus has been his unit’s inability to get off the field in the final frame in these talent-equated games. When Texas got the ball inside the Buckeyes’ 13-yard line in less than four plays, it looked like we were in store for another late-game letdown. Following back-to-back pass interference calls, the Longhorns were looking at first-and-goal from the 1-yard line, and it felt like a tie game was inevitable.
Instead, much like the offense was able to find a new gear and get points when it mattered most, the Silver Bullets dug deep and put together one of the greatest goal-line stands you will ever see. It all culminated in Sawyer’s sack-fumble and return touchdown on fourth down, and rather than the opponent going down the field and scoring late — which has more often than not been the case in these exact scenarios — this time Ohio State became the beneficiary of late-game heroics.
This was an impressive win for Ryan Day and Ohio State against a championship-caliber team. For much of Day’s tenure, he has been obsessed with proving his team is tough, and they were able to do just that on both sides of the ball on Friday night. This type of gutsy win over a quality opponent on a stage of this magnitude is something we have never quite seen from the ole head ball coach, and it is why it is probably his most impressive victory to date.
Ohio State knows it still has another game left to win, and just because they are the betting favorite doesn’t mean Notre Dame is going to lay down and hand them a national title trophy. The Buckeyes are in for a real fight against the Fighting Irish, but having been forced into the mud against Texas and coming out clean on the other side, Day’s group should have the confidence that they will be ready for whatever gets thrown at them on Jan. 20.