Early score indicative of something that just didn’t look right…tailback Ka’Jobi Jackson reaches backwards to score in the first quarter of Saturday’s loss in Austin. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Dan Harker)
A one-point loss after dominating for three quarters is the bitterest of pills to swallow. Now the Buckeyes must respond against a schedule full of difficult Big Ten opponents.
Austin, TX – Ohio State center Carson Hinzman isn’t a captain, but as a senior he knew he needed to console younger players who are key to his team’s plans for future success.
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Hinzman’s team, ranked No. 1 in the nation, had just blown a 20-point lead in the fourth quarter while failing to make what could have been a win-clinching play multiple times, and lost 24-23 to No. 4 Texas and Arch Manning on a touchdown with 25 seconds left.
Their lament felt heavier than the oppressive Texas heat.
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So Hinzman said what he could to encourage as he walked around the locker room, but mostly he knew what not to say. He knows this stunning loss needed to be absorbed and felt before his team could effectively move on. He just wanted to help them through it.
“I can’t just go up and be like, ‘Hey, man, get over it,’” he said. “It freaking hurts. It hurts me. It hurts everyone in the program. We want to win every single game we play.”
The harsh reality of the night is that the Buckeyes have lost three of their past four games. That’s never supposed to happen to them no matter the level of competition.
But it did. And Saturday, deep in the heat of Texas, was the time to commiserate.
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Before Hinzman spoke, Day and quarterback Julian Sayin dutifully entered the room, displayed their disappointment, and faced the questions of how this loss happened. They talked a lot about a failure of execution in the fourth quarter. But mostly you could see and hear the pain of defeat.
“This one hurts,” said Day, who lost for the first time in three meetings against Texas.
“This one hurt, especially because we didn’t execute the way we wanted to towards the end of the game,” Sayin said.
Ohio State’s Khary Wilder gets a shirtful, but cannot get Texas quarterback Arch Manning on the ground in Saturday’s game with the Longhorns.
That Ohio State would go undefeated against what is expected to be its toughest schedule in ages, always seemed unrealistic. Maybe, at least they hope, they’ve got their only loss behind them.
Then Hinzman and safety and captain Jaylen McClain said what this team needs to do to move forward and not let a one-point loss – albeit one they know they never should have lost – define their season.
“We lost a non-conference game,” Hinzman said. “Really, everything we want is still in our forefront, still in our big picture. We can still do everything we plan on doing this year.”
“You got to realize that it’s early – it’s a long season,” McClain said. “You can’t just dwell on this forever. As soon as this game was over, see where we went wrong, fix it and move on.”
All this disappointment came like a blindside hit after three quarters of playing like the No. 1 team.
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The first half felt like a full night of football with turnovers, big third-down conversions, key defensive stops and Sayin to Jeremiah Smith. And, at the time, what seemed like plenty to go into Week 3 still ranked No. 1.
Texas turnovers – including one on downs – set up 17 of the points the Buckeyes scored to take a 20-3 lead. The half turned on Texas’ first play from scrimmage when Manning completed a pass to the flat that freshman corner Jay Timmons sniffed out like a hungry fan going for halftime brisket.
Timmons disrupted the play enough for Raleek Brown to bang into a blocker and fumble. Timmons recovered at the Texas 18. The Buckeyes had to settle for a 26-yard field goal by Connor Hawkins and a 3-0 lead.
Soon afterward Manning threw deep to a wide-open Cam Coleman who beat McClain downfield like a rented steer. The play looked like a sure six for the Longhorns. But Manning’s throw was long, Coleman dived for it and what happened next had to make the Longhorns feel rattlesnake-bit.
OSU’s Jeremiah Smith hauls in a pass from Julian Sayin during the first half of Saturday’s game with the University of Texas in Austin.
As Coleman hit the turf the ball bounced out of his hands, into the air, and into the hands of McClain for an interception. A second Texas turnover in less than five minutes in.
The Buckeyes then converted two crucial third downs on a 10-play, 81-yard drive, flexing their Jeremiah Smith and running game muscles.
On third-and-10, Sayin threw 19 yards to Smith to reach the Texas 39. On third-and-four from the eight, Ja’Kobi Jackson broke tackles up the middle for a touchdown and a 10-0 lead.
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In the first quarter, Ohio State outgained Texas 119 to 5 and ran 21 plays to Texas’ eight.
The Buckeyes made their next set of statements in the final six minutes of the half.
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A 43-yard Smith reception set up a 30-yard field goal by Hawkins with 1:41 left. Then Texas got greedy on fourth-and-2 at the Ohio State 41. Cornerback Jermaine Mathews stayed home and threw the ballcarrier for a loss with 49 seconds left.
Sayin to Smith with 10 seconds left from 19 yards out put the Buckeyes up 20-3 at the half. The pass to Smith on a post pattern was perfectly put on Smith’s back shoulder to avoid the safety in the middle of the field. And Smith had 110 yards on six catches. He finished with eight for 164.
The unraveling began in the third quarter when Sayin overthrew Devin McCuin wide open down the middle. An on-target throw would have meant a 30-yard touchdown and a 27-3 lead.
“You definitely think about plays like that and the what-ifs,” Sayin said.
After another incompletion, OSU settled for a 48-yard Hawkins field goal and a 20-point lead.
Still, that lead seemed like enough with 8:09 left in the third quarter. But Sayin, who was 12-for-16 for 192 yards in the first half, finished 17-for-32 for 278 for the worst completion percentage of his career. Not at all to put everything on Sayin, but 5-for-16 is not a Sayin-type half.
The what-ifs piled up in the fourth quarter and got no help from consecutive three-and-out possessions and a missed field goal. Meanwhile, that afforded Texas time to drive to three touchdowns on drives of 15, 13 and 12 plays against an Ohio State defense withering in the heat.
OSU’s Jay Timmons misses a tackle on Texas quarterback Arch Manning during action in Saturday’s loss to the Longhorns in Austin.
“When we look at not being able to get off the field on defense, when you’re really not able to sustain the drives on offense and then miss the field goal, all three phases didn’t get it done in fourth quarter,” Day said. “So we all got to own that, and then make the corrections.”
Still, if one of any number of fourth-quarter plays had gone Ohio State’s way, they would have won. But no excuses. They didn’t make them, and against another high-level team you can’t give them an opening.
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On the first two touchdown drives, Manning completed difficult fourth-down passes to keep the drives alive. If the Buckeyes stop one of those plays …
Texas also nearly fumbled the ball away twice, once on a punt and later on a pass reception. Ohio State nearly recovered them both. If they had recovered just one, then …
Sayin’s miss of McCuin? Yeah, those four points they left on the field, they would have made a difference.
Then, with their backs against the wall, knowing they might not be able to stop Texas again, the Buckeyes drove to the 27. But Sayin couldn’t hit Smith on a pass to the end zone on third-and-four. And Hawkins missed this time from 45 yards with 4:16 left. The lead would have grown to nine, and Texas didn’t have enough time to score twice.
With a renewed chance, Texas drove 73 yards in 12 plays and scored on Hollywood Smothers’ one-yard touchdown dive over the top with 25 seconds left on third-and-goal for the winning points. And the crowd of 105,044, the third largest in stadium history, was rewarded for not giving up and leaving after the third quarter.
Ohio State was left with one second guess.
The Longhorns failed on their first two attempts from the one while the clock ran down from 1:02 to :25. If the Buckeyes had let Texas score sooner, they would have had close to a minute to work with.
“It’s not just one thing – it’s a list of all those things,” Day said. “It can come down to one play, and we weren’t able to make that play in the fourth quarter.” – Ryan Day
“We talked about it, and we decided we were going to play defense on second down,” Day said. “And then when we got that stop there, we thought we’d take our chances, see if we could stop them for two downs and win the game.”
But the memorable goal-line stands of the past two years couldn’t be repeated. And Ohio State was left to think about lack of execution in the fourth quarter and that one play they couldn’t make.
“It’s not just one thing – it’s a list of all those things,” Day said. “It can come down to one play, and we weren’t able to make that play in the fourth quarter.”
Day took ownership of the mistakes that were made and the plays that weren’t. Then he looked ahead to the task of figuring out why the fourth quarter went so wrong, while not forgetting the disappointment he doesn’t want to feel again with this team.
“We’ve got to go back, and it’s going to be painful and frustrating,” he said. “But that’s our job.”
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