The Drought is Over
Caleb Downs scores Ohio State’s first punt return touchdown since 2014.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Ohio State is playing in the College Football Playoff for the second time in three years.
There’s one obvious difference, of course, between this season’s team and the one that won the national championship just two years ago: Most of the players who will be suiting up for the Buckeyes on Dec. 31 against Clemson were standing on the sidelines, watching, back in 2014.
Many of the Tigers’ players have experience in the CFP; Clemson was there just last year, after all. Deshaun Watson, Wayne Gallman, Ben Boulware and others got their feet wet playing in games of this magnitude last season as the Tigers faced Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl and then Alabama for the national title.
But despite that lack of actual playing experience in an event like this one, many of Ohio State’s players feel they learned plenty from watching in 2014 that will help them with the large task at hand on New Year’s Eve.
“Definitely just learning from those guys and what I remember from what happened when we went to the Sugar Bowl and the national championship,” said Buckeyes left tackle Jamarco Jones, who was a freshman on the 2014 team. “That experience, because I was there, definitely helps.”
Sure, it would be better if Ohio State had more than just a handful of players who played in those two playoff games against Alabama and Oregon two seasons ago; Pat Elflein, Billy Price, Curtis Samuel and Raekwon McMillan are really the only players on this year’s team who saw significant playing time in that two-game run. But this team proved all year experience — or inexperience, rather — wasn’t exactly a huge issue.
“No matter what you play here, there’s a certain expectation that you have to play at,” said linebacker Chris Worley, who played special teams in 2014 and served as the backup to Darron Lee. “Coach [Urban] Meyer doesn’t change that for anyone. It is a bigger role [this year], but at the end of the day, you have to produce on that field.”
“I’m excited to have this opportunity to live up to the expectations, and it’s going to be a fun one.”
Even Ohio State’s quarterback — one of the most accomplished signal callers in school history — didn’t play in that 2014 postseason. J.T. Barrett was injured in the regular-season finale after a record-setting year and missed the Big Ten championship game, Sugar Bowl and CFP title game.
Barrett watched those games while on a scooter on the sidelines, but even he took something from the trip.
“The goal was reached, being that we have a national championship ring, but I think playing in it is something totally different,” Barrett said. “I was able to watch and help our team from the sidelines but playing in it, like I said, that’s totally different. That’s something I definitely want to be a part of.”
Elflein, one of the few who actually has College Football Playoff experience, has been in the ear of the guys who haven’t been here before. The trick, he says, is to do the same things Ohio State always does.
“It’s all about preparation and it always is,” Elflein said. “We stress that all year so they know what it takes to win a big-time game. Especially just like this last one was a big-time game and a big-time win and we prepare well that week and we practiced as hard as we could.”
“So that’s my approach to it is to practice like you’re playing the game and our coaches will put us in a good situation to win. When it’s time to make a play, you’ve made it so many times in practice that it’s going to show up on game day. So it’s all about preparation and trusting your coaches.”
For the Buckeyes, there’s a comfortability with being here despite the fact many of these players haven’t exactly been here. They witnessed a storybook run two years ago and that will help, they say. It’s the same approach, the same preparation.
Ohio State hopes the end result is will be the same, too.
