Congratulations!
If you're reading this, you outrushed the Oregon Ducks Wednesday (more on that in a bit).
No. 8 Ohio State put together its second straight nearly flawless College Football Playoff game, hammering No. 1 Oregon, the last remaining undefeated FBS team, 41-21, in the 111th Rose Bowl Game.
Here are you three key stats from the Buckeyes' CFP quarterfinal game win.
187 Yards
It was only fitting that Ohio State legend Cris Carter was on the sideline in Pasadena. Jeremiah Smith had broken nearly every one of Carter's Ohio State freshman receiving records, but the NFL Hall of Famer still held the single-game record for yards: 172 yards, coming in the 1985 Rose Bowl against USC.
Thanks to two 40-yard-plus touchdowns to help Ohio State to an early 24-0 lead, Smith had five catches for 161 yards at the 10;28 mark of the second quarter. Oregon as a team had 60 total yards at this point.
A 10-yard catch early in the third put him within a yard of Carter's mark, and then a 16-yard reception later in the quarter gave Smith 187 for the day, good enough for one more record. He warned Oregon earlier in the week about putting single coverage on him, and he delivered.
Smith also established a Big Ten freshman record for receiving touchdowns with 14 (and counting). In two College Football Playoff games, the 19-year-old has 13 catches for 290 yards and four touchdowns.
-23 Yards
After piling up 155 rushing yards on the Ohio State defense in the teams' first meeting this season, the Silver Bullets held Oregon to -23 yards on 28 attempts. Yes, sacks are baked into that number, but goodness. If you back out the sacks – all eight of them – the Ducks ran for a meager 33 yards on an average of 1.7 a carry.
Oregon's -23 rushing yards were the fourth-fewest allowed in a bowl game since 2002 and the fewest allowed by Ohio State in any postseason game. In fact, it was the fewest allowed by a Buckeye defense since the 1969 team held Northwestern to -29 on the ground. 1969!
Credit to the Ohio State defensive front, who have been great all season, but are playing at an entirely new level in the College Football Playoff. OSU sacked Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel eight times and notched 13 tackles for loss in the game, a massive improvement on the zero sacks and two tackles for loss from the teams' first meeting.
The eight sacks were two more than Oregon had allowed in its last 11 games combined and tied a program record for sacks in a postseason game (2017 Cotton Bowl vs. USC).
34 Points
Ohio State could not have asked for a hotter start to this one, jumping out to a 34-0 with 2:59 to play in the first half. Oregon's largest deficit on the way to 13 wins and no losses had been eight points, incidentally to the Buckeyes when they met in October. The 34-point lead was the largest any team has held over a team ranked No. 1 since Alabama jumped out 35-0 on Notre Dame in the 2013 BCS Championship Game.
The Buckeyes struck with three touchdown passes of 40-plus yards and TreVeyon Henderson's school Rose Bowl record 66-yard touchdown run to take control early. An Oregon touchdown and conversion late in the first half made it 34-8, the third-largest halftime lead for any team in the 111-game history of the Rose Bowl (Stanford +36 vs. Iowa in 2016).
Will Howard was damn near perfect, throwing for 218 yards in the first quarter alone – the second most of any Big Ten quarterback in any game in the last decade (C.J. Stroud, 241 vs. Michigan State in 2021).
It was that kind of a start for Ohio State.
Bonus Stats & Numbers
Ohio State is now 5–4 in College Football Playoff games with Ryan Day moving to 3–3 in CFP games as head coach of the Buckeyes… Jeremiah Smith became the third player with multiple 40-plus yard touchdowns in a CFP game and the first player in more than 20 years with more than 115 receiving yards in one quarter against the Oregon Ducks… This was Ohio State's first win against and undefeated No. 1 team since beating Miami to win the national championship in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl… Ohio State now has 10 Rose Bowl Game wins, the second-most of any program (USC with 25)… Since losing the 1985 Rose Bowl to USC, the Buckeyes are 5–0 in Pasadena… Ryan Day improved to 2–0 in the Rose Bowl Game and joins Woody Hayes as the only Ohio State coaches with at least two wins in the game… Denzel Burke, who struggled against Oregon earlier in the season, finished the day with one target and zero receptions given up… The 20-point win was the largest for Ohio State against a team ranked No. 1 in program history, topping the 13-point win over No. 1 Purdue in 1969.
- #8 Ohio State 41, #1 Oregon 21
- • Buckeyes Dominate Ducks, 41-21
- • Buckeyes Assert Themselves at Team to Beat
- • The Day JJ Took Over
- • Watch Ohio State's Postgame Celebration
- • Ohio State Postgame • Oregon Postgame • Photos
- • Five Things • Notebook • Social Reax • Three Key Stats