On Jan. 1, Ohio State gets a shot at something no other Buckeye team has gotten before – revenge against a squad that beat them earlier in the season.
#1 Oregon
Ducks
No. 8 Ohio State faces No. 1 Oregon in the Rose Bowl, riding hot off a dominant 42-17 win over Tennessee and eager for some getback after the Ducks dusted them 32-31 in Eugene earlier this year. Ohio State’s only other rematches since the start of the 20th century came in 2017 against Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship Game and in the 1976 Rose Bowl against UCLA, but OSU won both meetings with the Badgers that year and the first meeting against the Bruins before losing to UCLA in Pasadena.
Ohio State’s second meeting with Oregon comes with much greater stakes. Both teams are battling to keep their seasons alive and advance through the quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff. The Buckeyes re-engineered their defense after their defeat in Autzen Stadium and have born great fruits, allowing no more than 17 points in any game since that loss on Oct. 12.
Oregon’s been a juggernaut all year but isn’t without flaws. Its offense and defense have each limped through some victories, though the same arsenal of weapons that gave Ohio State’s secondary fits is still in place.
The Last of the Unbeatens
Those with enough of an interest in Ohio State, Oregon or college football in general to be reading this sentence know that the Ducks were crowned Big Ten champions on Dec. 7. They beat Penn State, a fellow quarterfinalist in the CFP, by a 45-37 margin in the conference title game.
Five of Oregon’s seven wins since beating the Buckeyes have come by 21 points or more. That includes a 38-9 shelling of then-No. 20 Illinois and a 38-17 win at Michigan. The Ducks were No. 1 in every edition of the College Football Playoff rankings and earned the No. 1 seed and a first-round bye in the CFP.
It’s odd that their reward for such efforts is a meeting with the team that had arguably the best first-round showing in the CFP, Ohio State. Discussions about flaws in the playoff structure aside, this is a game that could easily produce this year’s national champion with two rounds of CFP action still to go afterward.
Not only is Oregon the only undefeated team remaining in the FBS, only two other teams have even survived with just one loss on their docket to this stage. Those schools are Notre Dame and Boise State, which will also play in the quarterfinals next week. The Broncos’ lone defeat came at the hands of Oregon, a 37-34 battle waged on Sept. 7.
A Couple of Clunkers
Two teams have come close to dethroning the Ducks since their one-point vanquishing of the Buckeyes, those being Penn State and a 5-7 Wisconsin team that closed its season on a five-game losing streak. Oregon’s defense struggled in the former and its offense in the latter.
The Nittany Lions racked up 516 yards of offense in the Big Ten Championship Game, mostly due to the efforts of their rushing attack, which got 100-yard performances from both Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton. If not for two interceptions and a 20-of-39 mark passing from quarterback Drew Allar – who has had a good year otherwise – PSU could have thrown about 50 points on the scoreboard and knocked off Dan Lanning’s bunch.
A November night game in Madison froze Oregon’s attack to the point that the Ducks didn’t score a touchdown until the fourth quarter, one that tied the game at 13 before a 24-yard game-winning field goal, the third of the night settled for from the leg of Atticus Sappington. Such red zone trepidations are what kept the game close as Oregon still outgained Wisconsin 354 yards to 226.
Star quarterback Dillon Gabriel also had an off night, going 22-of-31 but for just 218 yards, a mark of seven yards per pass attempt well below his 8.8 for the year. He had no touchdowns and an interception, which came in a goal-to-go situation.
What can be learned from what otherwise appears like a non-replicable stymying of Oregon’s offense in a strange game in a raucous Camp Randall Stadium? Football games can be won and lost in the red zone. Lost amid the other failings of the Buckeyes’ defense against the Ducks in Week 7 is that it came up with a goal-line stand to give its offense a chance to win the game with a field goal had time not expired on Will Howard’s final scramble or Jeremiah Smith not been whistled for a controversial offensive pass interference.
Oregon has been solid in the red zone this season, ranking 34th nationally in red zone scoring rate (88.5%) and 20th in touchdown rate (72.1%), but a stop or two inside the 20-yard line could be enough to swing this playoff game. There are certainly other lessons to learn from the Ducks’ four one-score wins this year, and it’ll be up to Ryan Day and company to discover whatever vulnerabilities they can.
Book of Gabriel
The final chapter of Gabriel’s storied college football career has been his best yet.
Starting for an unprecedented sixth season thanks to a COVID-19 waiver and a medical redshirt, Gabriel is second all-time in the NCAA for passing yards with 18,423 and in touchdowns with 153. He’s 794 yards and two touchdowns from equaling the career records in those categories, both held by former Houston quarterback Case Keenum.
Gabriel is third in the country for completion percentage in 2024 – one spot behind Will Howard – connecting on 73.2% of his throws. He’s racked up 3,558 passing yards, ninth-most in the FBS, with 28 touchdowns and just six interceptions. Those numbers and Oregon’s unblemished record made him a finalist for the Davey O’Brien Award, the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award and the Heisman Trophy. The first two recognize college football’s best quarterback, the last its best player.
Gabriel’s efficiency meshes with the Ducks’ RPO, short-pass-heavy offense like peanut butter meshes with jelly. But it was downfield strikes that hurt Ohio State the first time the two teams met, with wide receivers Tez Johnson and Evan Stewart burning cornerback Denzel Burke for big plays as Gabriel finished 23-of-34 for 341 yards and two touchdowns, adding 32 yards and a score on the ground.
Given that Tennessee’s best offense, what little it had, came on scrambles from Nico Iamaleava and scrambling quarterbacks have at times been a thorn in the side of Ohio State’s No. 1-ranked defense, Gabriel’s legs will also have to be accounted for. He’s collected seven rushing touchdowns this year with 192 yards on the ground. Those legs also become a factor in extending passing plays, as the Buckeyes failed to corral him for a sack back in October.
Barbershop Quartet
Wide receiver Tez Johnson headlines a vaunted Oregon pass catching corps. (Credit: Grace Hollars/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
The names of the four passing-game weapons Ohio State’s defense will need to contain haven’t changed, but they’ve further proven their lethality throughout Oregon’s season.
There is perhaps no better a trio at wide receiver in college football than the Ducks’, save for the Buckeyes’ own corps of Jeremiah Smith, Emeka Egbuka and Carnell Tate. Johnson is the headliner from the slot position, collecting 78 receptions for 866 yards and 10 touchdowns, all team-highs.
Stewart and Traeshon Holden provide ample support to Johnson’s flanks, each over 600 yards receiving in 2024. The final complement to the passing game is tight end Terrance Ferguson, one of the nation’s premier receiving threats at his position with 38 catches for 520 yards and three scores.
Johnson had seven receptions for 75 yards the first time Ohio State and Oregon played but it may have been the best game of Stewart’s career as he finished with seven catches, 149 yards and a touchdown. Their effort combined with Gabriel’s in Week 7 prompted a re-engineering of Jim Knowles’ defense that has, thus far, been successful.
But Ohio State also hasn’t played as complete a passing attack since it played Oregon. Holden was also ejected in the second quarter for spitting on Buckeye cornerback Davison Igbinosun.
Running back Jordan James is a threat in his own right if Ohio State puts too much focus on the passing game, as he has 1,253 rushing yards and 15 touchdowns at a clip of 5.5 yards per carry this season.
Strong Pass Defense
Ohio State currently possesses the best defense in college football statistically, but Oregon doesn’t lag that far behind.
The Ducks are No. 9 nationally in total defense, allowing just 301.8 yards per game. They excel against opposing passing attacks, rankingNo. 8 nationally with 175.7 yards per contest allowed through the air.
But Ohio State found success tossing the pigskin against Oregon once already this year, with Will Howard going 28-of-35 for 326 yards and two touchdowns against the Ducks in October. That said, Oregon did not have the services of star defensive end Jordan Burch that day due to a lower-body injury.
In just nine games this season, Burch has racked up 30 tackles, 11 tackles for loss and 8.5 sacks. His running mate at defensive end, Matayo Uiagalelei, has 11.5 sacks in 2024.
Conversely, Oregon’s been weaker defending the run this season, as evidenced by Penn State’s two 100-yard rushers two weeks ago. The Ducks are just 35th in rushing yards allowed per game (126.1) and tied for 55th in yards allowed per carry (four). In Week 7, Ohio State rushed for 122 yards in the first half in Eugene, but only gained 19 yards on 12 carries in the second half after anchor left tackle Josh Simmons suffered a season-ending knee injury in the second quarter.
It’s been a series of ups and downs for Ohio State’s ground game and offensive line since. The Buckeyes struggled against Nebraska but got a season-defining game from their offensive line at Penn State, smothering the Nittany Lions late with their rushing attack. Season-defining, at least, until Rimington Trophy-winning center Seth McLaughlin suffered his own season-ending setback, a torn Achilles.
The ground game showed signs of being ineffective the following game against Indiana, then bottomed out against Michigan. But after coming out aggressive passing the ball against Tennessee, the Buckeyes quietly outrushed the Volunteers 156 to 152, averaging a respectable 4.7 yards per carry.
Ohio State’s patchwork offensive line – and team at-large – will hope to carry that momentum forward against the Ducks. Kickoff is at 5 p.m. Eastern Time and 2 p.m. local time in Pasadena on Jan. 1.
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