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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/dxdrummer on 2025-01-12 17:36:43+00:00.

Going into this game, the expectation was that Ohio State would win and win big. Ohio State had dominated excellent teams in the playoffs, and Texas lost against Georgia in the SEC championship game, then had two tight wins to make it to the semifinals. However, Texas showed up ready to play and, outside of a small handful of bad plays, had a real shot to win the game until late. However, Ohio State showed discipline and patience, grinding out a win by patiently moving the ball down the field, refusing to give up deep passes, and relying on their front 7 to pressure the QB and stuff the Texas run game.

Both teams entered the game with stellar Offenses and Defenses, but the defenses stole the show today. Ohio State averaged 41 points per game in the playoffs (36.5 on the season) but struggled to move the ball against Texas for much of the game. Texas played a lot of soft Cover 2 and Cover 3 zones, preventing Ohio State from successfully completing the deep ball, and forcing them to move down the field slowly. Ohio State’s secondary smothered the Texas WRs (aggressively, leading to several PI penalties), forcing Ewers to complete passes in tight windows if he wanted to throw the ball more than 3 yards downfield. Texas had some success with deep outs and corner routes along the right sideline but otherwise struggled to find WRs open deep.

If Texas’ defense had an Achilles heel this game, it was short curl routes. I lost count of how many times* Howard found a wide-open, short-to-medium curl route in the middle of the field, leading to a decent gain. In combination with their success with drag routes and screens, Howard efficiently and patiently moved the Ohio State offense down the field, forcing Texas into a death by a thousand cuts.

Both teams also successfully contained the others’ run game, putting more pressure on the opposing quarterback to move the ball down the field. In this game, Ohio State had nine tackles for a loss, forcing Texas into more difficult third-down situations.

A major inflection point for this game was when Ohio State lost JT Tuimoloau to injury. Ohio State had averaged 3threesacks per game this season and reached that mark at the start of the 2nd quarter, in large part due to Tuimoloau’s pass rushing. While Ohio State has a talented pass-rushing unit and was able to continue pressuring Ewers for the rest of the game, they couldn’t actually sack him again until the end of the game.

After the injury, momentum appeared to be shifting in Texas’ direction. They had a real shot to tie the game near the end before their offense imploded on the 1-yard line. Through a combination of questionable playcalling, stellar defensive play by Ohio State, and maybe some sort of curse, Texas went from potentially tying the game to a guaranteed loss in short order. Ohio State stuffed Texas on first down, leading Texas to call a toss play, which lost them 7 yards and had many of us scratching our heads in the press box. Texas was then forced to pass two times in a row, leading to an incompletion and then an impressive solo sack/fumble by Jack Sawyer, which he recovered for an 89-yard fumble return TD. This series of events led to a 14-point swing, putting the game away for Ohio State.

Ohio State is favored by 9.5 points over Notre Dame in the National Championship game, and I can see why with this performance. Ohio State has shown that it can win in all phases of the game against any opponent (except Michigan, apparently), and it looks virtually unbeatable when entering the championship game.

*According to my notes, Howard completed 10 curl routes, with 1 more taken away by a personal foul, for a total of 89 yards. This made up 42% of their completions and 31% of their passing yards

NOTES:

  • The Texas fans I know personally had kind of a defeatist attitude going into this game, and after the events of the 1st and goal on the 1, I can see why
  • The atmosphere was one of the best I’ve seen at a football game, even in our relatively muted press box
  • Even with some calls that made one team’s fans upset; the biggest boos of the evening came when they showed Kirk Herbstreit followed by Jerry Jones on the jumbotron