The Buckeyes are headed to the national title game.
After Ohio State forced a turnover on downs and scored on its first possession to open the game, it looked like we might be in store for another Buckeyes blowout. That was very much not the case on Friday night, as it took a four-quarter performance by Ryan Day’s team to put away Texas in a 28-14 win in the Cotton Bowl that came down to the wire.
While the Longhorns never led in the game, Steve Sarkisian’s group put together one heck of a fight. The Buckeyes overcame a strong Texas defense and some self-inflicted wounds to advance to the national title game, where they will face off against Notre Dame.
Here is the good, the bad and the ugly from Ohio State’s victory over Texas.
The Good
Jack Sawyer
Regardless of what happens for Ohio State in Atlanta, Jack Sawyer will go down in history.
Trailing by a touchdown in the fourth quarter, Texas got the ball to the Buckeyes’ 1-yard line with under four minutes remaining in the game. A run up the middle netted no gain on first down, and a questionable decision to run a toss play on second down lost seven yards. Quinn Ewers’ pass fell incomplete on third down, with Sawyer getting pressure right in his face, and so the Longhorns were faced with a 4th-and-8 with their season on the line.
Dropping back to pass, Ewers scanned the field to his left. Sawyer came screaming off the edge from the right, and just as Ewers cocked back to throw, the senior knocked the ball loose, scooping it up and running it back 83 yards for a touchdown that would seal the game and ultimately send Ohio State to the national title game. Sawyer, whose goal line interception against Michigan should have cemented himself in program lore, came up with an even bigger play in the team’s biggest game of the season.
Sawyer had a great night, recording the sack fumble to go along with one tackle for loss, two pass breakups and two QB hurries. The Buckeyes’ defense did a fantastic job overall at limiting a Texas offense that had scored 38 and 39 points in its prior two CFP games, holding the Longhorns to 14 points in Arlington. Sonny Styles had three tackles for loss and a sack, J.T. Tuimoloau had 1.5 sacks and 2.5 tackles for loss, and Caleb Downs picked off Ewers to end the game as Jim Knowles got stellar contributions from just about everyone.
Across three games in the College Football Playoff, Sawyer now has 10 total tackles, 4.5 sacks, five tackles for loss and seven (!!) pass deflections, on top of the scoop-and-score TD. Ohio State’s defensive line has been excellent at batting down passes in the postseason, with another four coming from that group in the Cotton Bowl — two by Sawyer, one by Tyleik Williams and one by Kenyatta Jackson.
The Running Backs
Texas’ defense played an impressive game, and much of the focus was on limiting Ohio State’s downfield passing attack. The Longhorns wanted to make the Buckeyes earn their points on long drives, rather than the deep shot touchdowns that they were able to torch both Tennessee and Oregon with.
To their credit, Texas executed that game plan almost flawlessly. Ohio State only completed one pass for more than 20 yards — TreVeyon Henderson’s 75-yard TD on a screen pass — and Jeremiah Smith finished with one catch for three yards. With so much attention on Smith and Emeka Egbuka, who still put together a decent game with five catches for 51 yards, Carnell Tate became the team’s leading receiver with seven catches for 87 yards.
While the Buckeyes’ offense was kept out of sync for most of the night, when they were able to get things going it was often as a result of having two phenomenal running backs. Henderson’s long touchdown before halftime will get most of the shine, but both he and Quinshon Judkins had huge games. Neither guy rushed for more than 50 yards, but the duo combined for 175 total yards and all three offensive touchdowns on 19 touches.
As a pair, Henderson and Judkins ran for 78 yards on 15 attempts — good for 5.2 yards per carry. Henderson’s lone reception was the long score, while Judkins had three catches for 22 yards and two impressive rushing touchdowns. On a night where play-calling was a bit shaky, Will Howard didn’t have his best stuff, the offensive line struggled a bit and Smith was drawing the focus of the entire secondary, Ohio State’s running backs came through in big way.
The Bad
Will Howard’s Pick
Howard didn’t have a bad game by any means, especially against a defense of this caliber. The Ohio State quarterback completed 24 of his 33 pass attempts for 289 yards and a touchdown, plus he picked up a critical fourth down with his legs on an 18-yard scamper before the turf monster took him down. The Longhorns got pressure on Howard, sacking him twice after the Buckeyes had gone three-straight games without allowing a sack, but for the most part he was still able to make the right decisions with the football.
However, Texas did a good job of disguising some of its coverages, and they did so effectively on Ohio State’s first drive of the second half, resulting in an interception. Howard locked on to Smith from the start of the play, and he never saw linebacker David Gbenda dropping back into coverage, floating it right into his hands after the Buckeyes had moved the ball down past midfield. It was a huge momentum killer in a game that already featured no shortage of self-inflicted wounds.
Luckily, the Silver Bullets were able to force a quick three-and-out on the ensuing possession, so Texas was unable to capitalize on any momentum either. We haven’t seen Howard lock onto a receiver like that much if at all this season, so it was a surprising mistake by the veteran quarterback that could have proved costly.
Third-and-1 Toss
I don’t think we need to spend a ton of time on this one.
Ohio State made an enormous mistake from a play-calling standpoint, attempting to convert a third-and-1 by pitching the ball to the outside rather than trying to fall forward with its 6-foot-5 quarterback. The Buckeyes have been very successful running the QB sneak with Howard this season, and it made no sense not to try it there — especially with no defender lined up directly over the center at the time.
The sneak probably gets you the first down in that situation nine out of 10 times, but pretty much any other rushing attempt would’ve been better than a toss. There is no reason to try and move laterally when you only need to pick up a few inches, especially against a defense like Texas’ that can fly. Ohio State would punt after the failed conversion, and the Longhorns would go down and score to tie the game on their ensuing possession.
Little things like that will have to get cleaned up before the Buckeyes take on a strong Notre Dame defense in the title game.
The Ugly
Penalties
We haven’t seen this Ohio State team get undisciplined from a penalties standpoint all season long, but the Buckeyes could not stop shooting themselves in the foot on Friday night.
The most egregious of the bunch came early in the game, when TreVeyon Henderson picked up a completely uncharacteristic unsportsmanlike conduct penalty to kill what had been a great drive onto Texas’ side of the field to that point. Instead of potentially adding at least another three points, Ohio State got pushed back 15 yards and was eventually forced to punt.
Flags became the story of the game for the Buckeyes, who finished the game with nine penalties for 75 yards. It seemed like just about every time Ohio State would start to get something positive going, a flag would come in to immediately negate it. Whether it was pre-snap penalties like a pair of false starts or some boneheaded decisions like Austin Siereveld’s unnecessary roughness, it was surprising to see from this Ohio State team loaded with veteran leadership.