THE SITUATIONAL: Right This Way

The Granddaddy only knows this version of Ohio State's head coach, going back to New Year's Day in 2019 when he orchestrated a 3rd quarter 28-3 lead over then-Pac 12 champ Washington. The Huskies' defense hadn't allowed 28 in regulation all year.

The Buckeyes took that lead into Urban Meyer's final quarter leading the program and began celebrating prematurely but still left town with the trophy. Day took the reigns that night.

Three seasons into his head coaching tenure, the Buckeyes found themselves back in Pasadena in a consolation prize game missing two 1st round receivers. ERD schemed up the Ohio State's first-ever 500-yard passer, producing a 48-point outburst against a defense which had allowed 30 points in its previous three games combined.

Two of the three teams the Utes had suffocated were ranked in the top 10. Also, they were both Oregon (no.3 and no.10, two weeks apart) and the Ducks had one of the country's best offenses that season. ERD schemed up nearly 700 yards of offense against that unit. He treated Kyle Wittingham like he owed him money.

Day's third visit to Pasadena carried the highest stakes yet as part of the expanded playoff, and ERD appeared again and harnessed every bit of the cruelty he had unloaded on Tennessee in the opening round and somehow made it even more barbaric.

It was 34-0 before your first pee break The cruelty is the point. That's how ERD operates.

This is the guy who got the Ohio State job. Two games removed from a catastrophic, self-inflicted loss in a game ERD ghosted, he has risen from the ashes of what probably should have been a legacy game and taken over the postseason with ferocity.

Evil Ryan Day is back on Ohio State's sideline. He can deal with the guy who coached the Michigan game in the offseason.

ERD is finding the expanded playoff as comforting as Pasadena. They overlap, which is wonderful.

Meanwhile, Ohio State's victorious archrival is celebrating something called a Reliaquest Bowl trophy while the Buckeyes - left for dead after forfeiting the opportunity to treat the Wolverines rudely - are the overwhelming favorite to survive the most arduous national championship path ever constructed.

Two games into that journey, they seem to have figured out how to quarantine the only team capable of wrecking their season, which is and has always been the Ohio State Buckeyes. ERD is back on the sideline. He can deal with the guy who coached the Michigan game this offseason.

Two coaches occupying one body. One is emotionally compromised; the other is bloodthirsty.

College football is struggling to reconcile with this development ever since Nov 30. How is this team the same team as that team? This year's Buckeyes are similar to some of the high-end sports cars Texas players drive around in Austin. Sure, you can slowly drive them off a cliff - but they've been designed to top over 200mph on a straightaway. In Columbus, ERD has returned and is back behind the wheel where he belongs.

He loves Pasadena. Hasn't been to Arlington, TX recently. Let's get Final Four Situational -

OPENER | LARRY BIRD IN CLEATS

Jan 1, 2025: Jeremiah Smith shushing a large green section of the Rose Bowl after scoring the game's first touchdown.

Back when Larry Bird's back wasn't betraying his Hall of Fame basketball career, he had a habit of telling opposing players, teams and coaches exactly what he planned to do once he got the basketball in his hands.

Bird was a Hall of Fame trash-talker. He destroyed his opponents from the inside out.

He would often tell whoever was guarding him which spot on the floor he was planning to shoot from before doing so. Bird could also downshift his effort and still be too good to slow down - he once played the Portland Trailblazers left-handed out of sheer boredom and put up 47 points as part of a triple-double.

Of all the superlatives being used to describe Jeremiah Smith as he continues to humiliate defenses (when Ohio State's game plan chooses to acknowledge his existence) the one taking up residence in my head this postseason is he's Larry Bird in Cleats.

Smith promised Oregon in the buildup to the Rose Bowl that if they rolled man coverage in his direction, the Buckeye offense would take shots, which they did. After the Ducks began doubling him, Will Howard continued targeting him. There was no element of surprise.

AFTER SMITH caught his second touchdown of the 1st half, he IMMEDIATELY pointed to the Ducks' free safety and ridiculed him for being so far AWAy.

Every time Smith made a catch, he had something to say to the nearest defender. After his diving reception in front of the Ducks' sideline he appeared to admonish them for disrespecting him with a single cover-corner, like he was mad at them for not trying hard enough to stop him.

When he caught his second touchdown of the 1st half, he pointed to the Ducks' free safety and ridiculed him for being so far off the ball that he was basically just playing catch with Howard during a live game.

Bird's ruthlessness with how he deconstructed his opponents began before games even tipped off, where he'd disclose his plans and ridicule coaches for their choices of whom they were assigning to guard him.

But what put him in the Hall of Fame was his production. It just happened to mirror his promises, all wrapped up in prepackaged taunts. And at 6'9" with his dexterity, precision and scoring ability - he was a mismatch. Imagine that guy in cleats.

Right now, Smith's production is matching up nicely with two-time Pro Bowler and one of the most dynamic and reliable receivers in the NFL - Ohio State alumnus Terry McLaurin. Their college production is nearly identical:

Wait, those are McLaurin's college stats for five years and Jeremiah is still a freshman congrats reader, unlike Oregon's secondary nothing gets by you. Smith is going to pass McLaurin's career production at Ohio State during his freshman season.

That's not diminishing anything Scary Terry did as a Buckeye, who was the paragon for Guy You Want to Root for while also becoming a decent receiver. He and Bird have something in common - they both dressed for championship games in their respective college sports.

McLaurin got a ring, but didn't play in the title game. Bird carried the team in his, but fell short. Smith has a shot to do something neither of them were able to do - play in and win a national title.

In the meantime, don't be worried if he keeps calling his shot in pregame. Be encouraged.

INTERMISSION

The Solo

The last time we had to tolerate the unforgivable phrase Defending National Champion Michigan Wolverines it was following the 1997 season. This year, intermissions will pay homage to that cursed year's Billboard Hot 100.

Back before Shazam or streaming music were available, you would hear a song and have to wait for a deejay to tell you what you just heard. Sometimes you liked a song. You just didn't know what it was called or who sang it.

During this primitive era while I was in college, I heard a song by a woman singing about getting drunk while watching cars being washed across the street from the bar she was sitting in on a Tuesday morning. No idea what she looked like or what her name was, but she sounded like the perfect woman to Senior Year Me.

Turned out she was one of Michael Jackson's old backup singers, and 30 years later I was at her enshrinement in Cleveland at the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame, which inducted her for being one of the world's great musicians.

Sheryl Crow's biggest song of 1997 includes an electric guitar solo. Let's answer our two questions.

Is the musician in the video actually playing the electric guitar?

It's more of a break than a solo, but guitar is handled by Jeff Trott who co-wrote it and has a songwriting resume for leading women which includes Crow, Stevie Nicks, Liz Phair and Natasha Bedingfield. He's not in the video because the only way to look uglier than you already are is to stand next to Sheryl Crow. Smart man. VERDICT: No, inconclusive.

does this electric guitar break slap?

Trott turns down the temperature just long enough for Crow to catch her breath and continue to work her way through what was surely a vicious hangover from her Tuesday escapades. Pro tip, this is one of the easiest hard songs in the karaoke library - croon away, ugly people. It can't be that bad. VERDICT: Slaps

The Bourbon

There is a bourbon for every situation. Sometimes the spirits and the events overlap, which means that where bourbon is concerned there can be more than one worthy choice.

Garrison Bros. Best Little Stillhouse in Texas™

The first college football program in the state of Texas was the one the Buckeyes will be facing on Friday evening in Dallas.

The Longhorns began playing in 1893, which was Ohio State's fourth season fielding a team - the Buckeyes went 4-5 that year, losing to Otterbein, Oberlin, Case Western and Kenyon twice. If you thought losing to Michigan as a 21-point favorite at home was bad, well yeah you're right buddy but remember it's all relative in this journey we call America.

The first distillery in the state of Texas was Garrison Brothers, which defied the odds and summer temperatures to create a bourbon which could survive Texas summers - which is to say they were only able to produce any juice once they figured out their barrels needed to be thicker than anything you might find in Kentucky.

They call it The Best Little Stillhouse in Texas, which sounds like the title of a movie one of my friends stole from the Lane Road library when we were kids thinking it was going to be of the adult variety - but it turned out to just be funny.

Mash bill here runs 74/15/11 corn/wheat/malted barley which is bourbonese for Please Compare This to Weller and Maker's Mark. Pancakes and syrup on the nose, honey custard on the palate and a hotter burn on the finish than you'd expect from a wheated. Available in most liquor stores and online. Recommended! Hook one.

CLOSER | RIGHT THIS WAY

Jan 1, 2025: Quinshon Judkins runs through a hole blocked up by Bennett Christian (85) and Will Kacmarek (89).

Texas stands in the way of an All-Midwest national title game and presents the most roster talent Ohio State will have faced this season. The Longhorns are similar to the Buckeyes in that they can look like they're actively suffocating themselves at times.

And then a quarter or a Saturday later, Texas is effortless piling up yards and points and bullying whomever they choose. Like ugh why don't they just always play this way. This should sound familiar.

Their 38 and 39-point performances halfway through the CFP represent their second and third-highest outputs against Power Four opponents this season, which is to say they're finding themselves at the right time - also, should sound familiar. They've come at the expense of Clemson and Arizona State, two defenses giving up about double what the Buckeyes allow on average.

Ohio State should expect to see the best-possible Version of Texas, capable of piling up yards and points.

The version Ohio State should expect to see is the best-possible one, capable of piling up yards and points intending to bully the visitors on Friday night. As for the Buckeyes, they have been orchestrating their playoff games by showing their hands, watching how defenses respond - and then exploiting what they're given. The opposite of Nov. 30.

Losing like it did to Michigan didn't so much illuminate the path to wrecking the playoff field as it did force the issue. Being coy with talent advantages and stubborn with pressure-testing weaknesses in a live game format was wrong and had to stop. That loss changed game strategy, and the results thus far couldn't be clearer. It's right this way.

Tennessee and Oregon served up recipes for losing to this version of the Buckeyes that Texas will likely try to avoid by starting fast and trying to steal the keys from Ohio State early so that they are the ones trying to catch up and dig out of a hole.

SITUATIONAL ARCHIVE The Situational Whiskey Cellar

It would be a smart strategy, except it relies on attacking a unit which just dropped four interceptions in Pasadena, and very likely spent some of this week in pass-catching drills to prevent those opportunities from slipping through their fingers again. Ok, cool. Hook'em.

Thanks for getting Situational today. Go Bucks. Beat Texas.