Buckeyes’ coach Ryan Day hoists the Rose Bowl trophy following Wednesday’s 41-21 win over the #1-ranked Oregon. (Press Pros Feature Photo by Sonny Fulks)
Stifling defense, prolific offense and a resolve to make good on a second chance send Ohio State to a playoff semifinal against Texas at the Cotton Bowl.
Pasadena, CA – Ryan Day continues to passionately praise three things he loves about the hottest college football team in America.
His players.
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“These are the guys who are warriors who are doing it on the field,” Day said. “I just can’t say enough about these guys.”
Veteran columnist Jeff Gilbert writes Ohio State football and OHSAA sports for Press Pros Magazine.com.
Their execution.
“We’ve really focused hard after the regular season on our execution,” Day said. “I know that sounds really simple, but it’s something that we talk a lot about.”
And the character required to rejuvenate themselves from the one-point midseason defeat at Oregon and the crushing loss to Michigan on the last Saturday of November.
“This team is resilient,” Day said. “We wanted to win a national championship, and the way that we got here wasn’t what we expected. But the players have stuck together, and they’re fighting to continue to stay together.”
Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith flashes his signature sign of success as he crossed the goal line for the Buckeyes’ first score.
Day sat behind a wide garland of sweet-smelling roses and said those things Wednesday evening after the 11th Rose Bowl. His pride was in his No. 8 Ohio State Buckeyes. They bolted to a 34-0 lead and left no doubt with a 41-21 decimation of No. 1 Oregon in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals.
The senior entrusted to wear the Block O uniform nodded his head repeatedly as Day spoke. Then linebacker Cody Simon, the defensive player of the game, put the praise right back on his coach, suddenly a man much more loved by a demanding fan base than was true at the end of November.
“It’s a game about your body, mind and spirit,” Simon said. “Coach Day does a great job, and he wants us to understand the moment and how the steps of each game goes.”
So much is right with this team from a defense that demoralizes otherwise good offenses to an offense that deflates defenses with ease. And creating the execution and building the character Day speaks glowingly of, is a collective psyche in sync and focused on the No. 1 thing.
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“Obviously, there’s a lot of emotion,” Simon said, “but it really is just about doing your job.”
My, how the Buckeyes (12-2) are doing their jobs.
Linebacker Cody Simon tracks down Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel for a sack in the second half of Wednesday’s 41-21 Buckeyes win in the Rose Bowl.
Simon led a defense that re-engineered itself after allowing the Ducks (13-1) to score 32 points the first time. The Ducks were the latest victim of Jim Knowles’ gang loaded with fourth- and fifth-year players.
“We changed our attitude, our mentality,” Simon said of the difference between then and now. “There were a lot of plays in the first game we weren’t even aligned. An offense like that, they thrive on that stuff. We went through a lot of tough conversations after that game, and I think we’re better for it now.”
The Buckeyes sunk the Ducks with minus-23 rushing yards. They did it by stuffing running backs at the line and by sacking the difficult-to-sack Dillon Gabriel eight times for losses totaling 56 yards. Simon and ends J.T. Tuimoloau and Jack Sawyer each sacked Gabriel twice. In the first meeting, the Buckeyes didn’t touch Gabriel behind the line of scrimmage. He ultimately threw for 299 yards and two touchdowns, but not until after the Buckeyes led 34-0.
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“It was fun, we executed, we played fast, we played hard, and we held each other accountable,” senior cornerback Denzel Burke said. “My brothers … we did this together.”
While the defense made the Ducks punt four times without getting a first down and stopped them on fourth down near midfield in their first six possessions, the offense put the game out of reach. Referring to the four times the Buckeyes scored touchdowns as drives is an inadequate definition. The offense struck with speed and precision rarely seen in a game of this magnitude.
Freshman Jeremiah Smith ‘shushes’ the Oregon crowd following his first quarter 45-yard touchdown.
Jeremiah Smith, the offensive player of the game, caught a short pass from Will Howard, turned up field, broke an ankle tackle and cruised 45 yards to the end zone for a 7-0 lead one minute into the game. The drive: three plays. 75 yards, 1:00.
Emeka Egbuka caught a 42-yard touchdown pass a few yards before crossing the goal line for a 14-0 lead. The drive: three plays, 53 yards, 1:05.
Smith broke off the line from the left slot, faked a move to the left, spun the safety 360 degrees, and was wide open at the two for a 43-yard touchdown catch and a 24-0 lead. The drive: two plays, 48 yards, 43 seconds.
TreVeyon Henderson got two key blocks on the outside and was instantly in the open down the right sideline for a 66-yard touchdown – the longest TD run by a Buckeye in a Rose Bowl – and a 31-0 lead. The drive: one play, 66 yards, 10 seconds.
Henderson’s burst was more than the kind of home run play the Buckeyes have been looking for from him, it was a knockout punch. Nobody comes back from 31-0 on this stage.
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The composite numbers of those four touchdown “drives” – nine plays, 242 yards, 2:58.
The next team tasked with stopping the Buckeyes is Texas, the No. 5 seed. The Longhorns blew a comfortable lead in the Peach Bowl on Wednesday and survived Arizona State 39-31 in two overtimes. The teams meet in the semifinals next Friday in the Cotton Bowl at AT&T Stadium.
What a lot of teams haven’t done…the Buckeyes Caleb Downs and Jordan Hancock separate Oregon’s Tez Johnson from the ball and send him spinning.
“Those guys have worked hard to stay together, and now we have an opportunity to go play Texas,” Day said. “We have a lot of football ahead of us.”
If a sliver of doubt existed at all Wednesday, it came after Jayden Fielding kicked his second field goal for the 34-0 lead. The Ducks finally sent enough decoys out to get down the field and score on Gabriel’s five-yard touchdown pass to Traeshon Holden on the final play of the first half.
Then the Ducks opened the second half with an 11-play, 75-yard drive to make the score 34-15. The lead was still three scores, and the Buckeyes had only been stopped once. But nervousness, nonetheless, set in.
On the Buckeyes’ next possession, just when you wondered where the great play calling of the first half was hiding, the Buckeyes remembered what got them to 34-0.
“Hey, Chip, this is Ryan,” is how a call to the press box might have gone. “Throw it to No. 4.”
That’s just what Howard did. A third-down conversion for 10 yards to Smith and a 16-yard leaping grab on the sideline moved the Bucks to the Oregon 28. A nice run by Quinshon Judkins, with a facemask penalty added on, and an eight-yard touchdown run by Henderson followed for a victory-cementing 41-15 lead.
Smith continued to play like the best freshman in the nation. He caught seven passes for 187 yards, breaking the OSU single-game receiving record set by Cris Carter at 172 yards in the 1985 Rose Bowl. Carter was on the sideline Wednesday. Smith also is the 12th Buckeye with over 100 receiving yards in five games in a season and the first freshman to do it.
Long, and gone…Oregon’s bench admires TreVeyon Henderson’s 66-yard touchdown run during the second quarter of Wednesday’s Rose Bowl win.
“Offensively we had to get the ball on the perimeter, take shots and win our one-on-one matchups,” Smith said. “And that’s what we did.”
Howard completed 17 of 26 passes for 319 yards and three touchdowns. He talked this week again about the bad aftertaste of the loss at Oregon when he slid to try stop the clock as the clock hit 0:00. Fielding didn’t get a chance to try for a winning field goal.
“We played angry and it showed,” Howard said. “We got out to the early lead, and it was hard for them to come back.”
By the end of the third quarter, it was game over. Everyone knew it.
But when the stadium lights flashed on and off at the end of the third quarter while “Shout” played, the Oregon fans were far more into it than Ohio State fans. The people in green jumped up and down and shook the stadium. They knew it was their final chance this season to enjoy their time in a football stadium. When the singer urged “a little bit louder now,” Ohio State fans saved their voices for the final celebration.
Jubilation on the bench…as TreVeyon Henderson’s 66-yard touchdown gave the Buckeyes their commanding first-half lead over Oregon.
They roared when the clock hit all zeroes. They collected confetti. The listened as Day, Smith and Simon addressed the crowd and TV audience.
They joined the team and marching band in “Carmen Ohio.”
For the team and the fans, the Rose Bowl victory meant a lot. But it’s not the final destination it used to be.
This time victory means they get to be together as a team one more week.
“It’s a blessing,” Burke said on the field while the party was still going.
“We got two more to go. It’s our job not to get in over our heads too much. We’re going to celebrate this tonight, but once tomorrow hits, it’s all Texas.”
With Texas on Day’s mind, he was asked if the loss to Michigan had somehow become beneficial.
“It’s hard for me to say something like that, but you’re the sum of your experiences,” he said. “We’ve had some great wins. We’ve had tough losses. But ultimately it comes down to our guys.”
Defensive ends JT Tuimoloau and Jack Sawyer share the Rose Bowl trophy during the celebration following the Buckeyes’ 41-21 Rose Bowl win over Oregon.
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