The answer from the start…freshman Jeremiah Smith’s eye-opening performance (first quarter touchdown, above) reminded Buckeye fans of what they had expected all along! (Press Pros Feature Photos by Sonny Fulks)
Ohio State dominates Tennessee in the final for four first-round playoff games, jumping to a 21-0 lead and putting the game away in the third quarter.
Columbus, OH – Cheerleaders and players smiled with rose stems clenched between their teeth. And big, bad lineman Donovan Jackson walked into the postgame interviews carrying a half-dozen roses.
How nostalgic.
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A guy in a suit representing the College Football Playoff committee presented head coach Ryan Day with a commemorative game ball before Day answered questions. They posed for photos, but Day didn’t smile.
Veteran columnist Jeff Gilbert writes Ohio State football and OHSAA sports for Press Pros Magazine.com.
Going to the Rose Bowl is only the next step.
While it felt like a party on the field as the team sang “Carmen Ohio,” Day, his coordinators and a few players were all business during their interviews. Clearly, no matter how good it felt to play their best game of the season in a 42-17 domination of Tennessee, this team’s attitude was simple, focused and realistic.
They haven’t won anything yet.
The national championship, the only one of the Buckeyes’ three big goals that they can accomplish, requires three more victories beginning with a playoff quarterfinal Rose Bowl rematch with top-ranked and unbeaten Oregon on New Year’s Day. If you doubted the Buckeyes’ resolve after losing to Michigan and missing a chance to play for the Big Ten title, they made believers out of at least themselves on Saturday night that a title run is possible.
“They’re a good team, but we’re a good team, too,” linebacker Cody Simon said. “So we’re going to go out there and play our best and go out there and get a win.”
The defense played with confident contempt…defensive lineman Tyleik Williams (above) sacks Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava.
That’s 180 degrees from the recent negative chatter about the Ohio State program. For three weeks – since a fourth straight loss to Michigan – the message has been doom, gloom and a much-expected boom that Ryan Day will be fired.
But on Saturday night in front of 102,819 fans – many of them sticking out like Orange Dreamsicles all around the Horseshoe and feeling just as frozen – Ryan Day’s Buckeyes played like the team the nation expected to see all season.
After three comfortable first-round wins by Notre Dame, Penn State and Texas, the 8-9 matchup was supposed to be the close game. But it was the biggest beatdown, the blowout no one dared predict, the performance that easily allowed OSU fans to drown out the ones from the team down SEC way.
The Buckeyes (11-2) jumped to a 21-0 lead. They outgained the Volunteers 472-256. They rushed for 156 yards. They handled the up-tempo offense with ease. They sacked the quarterback four times. They didn’t let their quarterback get sacked.
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And their offensive stars shined. Quarterback Will Howard completed 24 of 29 passes for 311 yards and two touchdowns. Freshman wide receiver Jeremiah Smith caught those two touchdowns and gained 103 yards on six catches. TreVeyon Henderson rushed for 84 yards on 10 carries and two spectacular touchdown runs of 29 and 24 yards, and he caught four passes for 54 yards. Quinshon Judkins was a short-yardage bull with two one-yard touchdown runs.
“We blocked better in this game, I thought we ran through contact better in this game, and certainly we threw and caught better in this game,” Day said. “That made a huge difference.”
The offensive stars shined…Tre’Veyon Henderson outruns a Tennessee defensive back for a first quarter touchdown.
The offensive rhythm on the first three drives made it look like the only obstacles that could stop the Buckeyes would be themselves or questionable officiating. The Buckeyes needed only five, five and seven plays to lead 21-0.
Efficiency reigned.
“I was really fired up about the game plan more than usual,” Howard said. “At the end of the day, it’s how you execute it. And I think we did a hell of a job executing.”
Nothing was more impressive than Howard to Smith. When Smith caught a 37-yard on-target laser from Howard for the first score, the Buckeyes’ offense suddenly looked like the one that was supposed to be on display against Michigan. Judkins got the second touchdown. And Henderson bounced to the outside and outraced a defender who underestimated the angle he needed to push Henderson out of bounds.
The fans in scarlet were loud. The ones in orange were speechless.
“You’ve heard us harp on execution, execution, execution, because there’s a lot of things coming out of that last game that we just didn’t execute very well,” Day said. “Certainly there are things that we needed to do better in terms of scheme, but we also didn’t execute.”
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Execution issues surfaced in the second quarter but not enough to matter.
The kick-em-back-down-the-road-to-Knoxville foot on the Volunteers throat almost put the game out of reach with 10:02 left in the first half. Instead, the Volunteers were resuscitated with some help from the ACC officials who earned the right to call a playoff game.
Howard tried to throw a 20-yard touchdown pass to Smith in the back of the end zone. Smith almost made a miraculous one-handed catch. He was interfered with, but no flag was thrown. And Tennessee’s Will Brooks intercepted the floating football with a toe visible on the green turf before he fell out of the back of the end zone.
This Tennessee interception of a would-be touchdown to Jeremiah Smith in the second quarter stood between the Vols and an all-out first half rout.
Instead of scoring a touchdown on a fourth consecutive drive, Tennessee kept the road back to Knoxville clear for the moment. The Volunteers advanced the football for the first time – aided by a phantom roughing-the-passer penalty – and Max Gilbert kicked a 36-yard field goal to trim Ohio State’s lead to 21-3.
The Buckeyes answered with a three-and-out possession, and the Volunteers built on their new-found momentum. Quarterback Nico Iamaleava, the shifty and twitchy redshirt freshman, was the Volunteers main running threat and led a touchdown drive. Iamaleava scored from the two with 20 seconds left in the half.
The Buckeyes led 21-10 in a game that felt like the margin should be at least another touchdown larger. And the Volunteers got the ball to start the second half.
Defensive coordinator Jim Knowles loved the way his team started the game with back-to-back three-and-out possessions and forced three straight punts. But the second quarter didn’t meet the standard.
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“I got after them at halftime and challenged them because I knew the way the game was going, that as long as we did our job, everything was going to turn out all right,” he said.
The Volunteers ran eight plays and punted.
“We knew that was a super important moment in the game, so we knew we had to go out there with that same energy that we started,” Simon said. “We could have played a lot better in the second quarter, so we wanted to come out with that intensity again.”
The Buckeyes’ Emeka Egbuka gets tangled with a Volunteer defender after this catch in Saturday night’s game first-round College Football Playoff game.
The Buckeyes’ offense responded with like-minded intensity for two touchdown drives. Smith caught a 22-yard touchdown, and an 18-point lead was feeling pretty good on the OSU sideline.
When Judkins scored to make the score 35-10, the Buckeyes began to feel the warmth of their California-here-we-come moment. Rocky Top hit bottom. And an orange river of fans began to flow down the steps and into the parking lots.
“I tell the guys all the time when you’re in games like this, you got to have poise, because there’s ups and downs, and you can’t get caught up in that,” Day said.
As much as the talk about what’s wrong with the Buckeyes wants to be about the flashy things – quarterback play, offensive play calling, the head coach – the issue has always fallen back to the offensive line.
Injuries at left tackle and to center Seth McLaughlin, the Rimington Trophy winner as the best player at his position, created a makeshift line. But with three weeks to prepare, the line came together.
Stunned…raucous during warmups, the conspicuous visiting crowd watched in disbelief as reality set in.
“I’m so proud of those guys,” Howard said. “I had to listen to them get just harassed for the last three weeks, and I had to sit here and just act like it didn’t affect me. Those are my brothers, man. And I go to war with those guys every single day, and for them to show out and have the performance that they had tonight, it was huge.”
And the defense didn’t have to win the game by itself. The offense showed up and became a No. 8 seed no one wants to play.
But Oregon has to. And the Buckeyes are determined to make up for the 32-31 loss in Eugene.
“You don’t get a lot of second chances,” Howard said.
“The fact that we’re getting a second chance is a blessing from the Lord. We’re going to go out there and have some fun and let it rip, man, because this is all we got.”
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