On Thursday night, Cardale Jones and Devin Smith continued a game of catch that’s become one of the deadliest plays in Ohio State’s playbook.
It started in the Big Ten Championship Game, where the third-stringer-turned-starting quarterback and wide receiver connected for three touchdowns, all on long passes of 39 yards or more.
The bond, as Jones once described in the weeks leading up to a Sugar Bowl bout against Alabama, is as simple as this:
“He's a really fast guy and I can throw it really far. The coaches were like, ‘We may have a little thing here.’ He was involved in the game plan as a vertical threat.”
Now fast forward a month to New Orleans where the duo struck again, cutting through top-ranked Alabama’s secondary for a 47-yard bomb to ignite a second-half surge that helped guide the Buckeyes to a 42-35 win and a trip to the national championship next week in Dallas.
The deep ball has become one of Ohio State’s deadliest weapons.
“We’re going to use his arm as our strength,” Smith said.
And the Buckeyes triple-dog dare you to stop it.
Welcome to life with Jones, a 6-foot-5, 250-pound quarterback who can “who can throw the ball out of this world,” according to Smith.
“The one thing that the new quarterback does is he has a tremendous arm,” Alabama head coach Nick Saban said after the game.
“And they have some very talented receivers. And the two things that were very apparent is those things became very apparent in the last two games because of the quarterback.”
That’s not a knock on J.T. Barrett or Braxton Miller, but Jones’ exceptional arm strength brings out the best in Ohio State’s wide receivers like Smith and Michael Thomas, a redshirt sophomore who surely has a future in the NFL someday.
“They were a little different and the quarterback was a great runner — when (Barrett) was playing, and he was a good passer,” Saban said.
“But it wasn't so obvious when you watched the film all season long that they had these great skill players that could really make plays down the field.” Apparently, it stunned Alabama.
“I really give their team a lot of credit, I give their coaching staff a lot of credit. They're difficult to defend.”
And perhaps no play is harder to guard than a heave from Jones to Smith, who head coach Urban Meyer regard as the “best deep-ball receiver” they’ve ever coached.
When asked how far he could throw a football, Jones said it was anywhere from 80-85 yards.
“It’s not that important unless a guy can get down there to catch the ball,” he said.
Fortunately for the Buckeyes, that’s not a problem.
