The OSU offense, defense, and special teams all got an A in my book based on their performance. While there are some small things to nitpick (the first drive of the game, Emeka's fumble, tackling in the secondary in the fourth quarter) overall, everyone did what they had to do and never allowed ND to seize control of the game.

That said, was there anything about the way the game played out that surprised you?

For me, the biggest surprise was how well the Domers pass protected. While I know that the defensive game plan was to cage in Leonard as a runner, I was impressed at how much ND's OL gave him time to throw when he dropped back to pass. We had heard all week about how Notre Dame's line had been decimated by injuries, and certainly outside of the first drive, they had a hell of a hard time establishing the run game, but Knowles' unit had difficulty getting pressure on Leonard without bringing an extra defender or two on blitzes. Given the PTSD that Sawyer and Tuimoloau had been wreaking on Tennessee, Oregon, and Texas' QBs in one-on-one situations, it was weird not hearing their names called repeatedly for big boy sacks.

My second surprise was just how easily our offense moved the ball against Al Golden's defense. The first two CFP games showed the world how explosive we could be, but in the Cotton Bowl, the O was forced to methodically drive the length of the field (by Pete Kwiatkowski's design). We stalled repeatedly with self-inflicted wounds and struggled to turn poor field position into points. Against Notre Dame, it felt like we did whatever we wanted in the run game, flats, and seams whenever we wanted to. Regardless of how far back ND pinned us with punts, we happily sliced through them like a hot knife through butter and ended drives with TDs. We literally scored every single time we got the ball, with the exception of one drive in the fourth quarter where Howard missed the gimme throw to a wide open JJ Smith on 3rd and short and the second half Egbuka fumble (and if he hadn't gotten the ball tomahawked, we were already in FG range at the 20). We didn't have a single three-and-out during the entire contest. If that's not the definition of offensive dominance, I don't know what is.