The Buckeyes have arrived at the doorstep of the College Football Playoff national championship game.
#5 Texas
Longhorns
Barricading Ohio State's entry to the national title contest is Texas, the fifth seed in the playoff and winners over 12th-seeded Clemson and fourth-seeded Arizona State.
While quarterback Quinn Ewers is the top Texas player on the minds of many Buckeye fans, Texas has been driven by its defense this year. The Longhorns rank top-five nationally in points, yards and passing yards allowed per game, only surrendering more than 24 points twice this season, one of which came in its double-overtime win over ASU.
Texas is the last SEC team standing in the CFP and will get a home-game type of atmosphere just a three-hour drive away from its campus at the Cotton Bowl. The Longhorns' offense has shown weakness this year, however, and even their fantastic secondary may have trouble slowing down Jeremiah Smith, Emeka Egbuka and Carnell Tate, et al.
A Quinntessential Reunion
There is perhaps no bigger storyline surrounding Ohio State and Texas’ CFP semifinal showdown than Ewers’ faceoff with his former team.
Ewers was a heralded prospect dating back to his middle school days, landing an offer from the Buckeyes as an eighth grader. He emerged as the No. 1 prospect in the recruiting class of 2022, a rare unanimous selection as such in the 247Sports composite rankings. A lifelong Texas fan, he committed to the Longhorns on Aug. 14, 2020, only to decommit on Oct. 28 that year and pledge his services to Ryan Day and staff less than a month later.
Then, just before the start of the Buckeyes’ 2021 preseason camp, Ewers made the decision to skip his senior year of high school and enroll at Ohio State a year early. Before that reclassification, there had been a clear succession plan to give Ewers a shot at being the Buckeyes’ starter in his second year with the team, which would have been 2023. Instead, as C.J. Stroud emerged as a star during his redshirt freshman 2021 season, Ewers hit the transfer portal after just four months in Columbus, landing back with the Longhorns.
“C.J. really had a great season that season, and (Ewers) decided he really wanted to play,” Ryan Day said on Friday. “And boy, it was disappointing for us, but we certainly understood. And from afar, I've watched him and he's got a lot of talent. He's a really good player. He comes from a great family and he's had a great career at Texas.”
There were bumps in Ewers’ first year at Texas, especially as he dealt with some injuries, completing just 58.1% of his passes for 2,177 yards and 15 touchdowns with six interceptions, averaging 7.4 yards per pass attempt. He found a much better rhythm as a junior in 2023, connecting on 69% of his throws for 3,479 yards and 22 touchdowns with six interceptions, moving up to 8.8 yards per pass attempt.
Be it more bumps and bruises from injury, pressure from backup quarterback Arch Manning or the departure of star wide receivers Xavier Worthy and Adonai Mitchell, Ewers’ numbers have regressed some in 2024. His completion rate is at 66.5% and while he’s thrown for 3,189 yards and a career-high 29 touchdowns, he’s also tossed 11 interceptions and averaged just 7.9 yards per pass attempt.
Sark’s Stark Turnaround
When then-Alabama offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian was hired to replace Tom Herman as Texas’ head coach in 2021, the Longhorns had only collected 10 wins in a season once over the past 11 years. It took building blocks of 5-7 and 8-5 campaigns in 2021 and 2022, but Sarkisian has finally returned Texas to national relevancy.
The coming-out party for his program came on Sept. 9, 2023, when the Longhorns waltzed into Tuscaloosa and handed Nick Saban’s final Alabama team a 34-24 loss. Ewers threw for 348 yards and three touchdowns while tight end Ja’Tavion Sanders – another weapon who has since moved on – caught five passes for 114 yards.
Texas faltered against rival Oklahoma and fell behind in the race for the final four-team CFP but rattled off seven straight wins from there, the final one being a 49-21 smoking of Oklahoma State in the Big 12 Championship Game. That locked the Longhorns into the No. 3 seed, where the future SEC school fell to future Big Ten outfit Washington 37-31 to end its season in the CFP semifinals.
But Sarkisian rallied his troops for their first year in the SEC, and the Longhorns are now the lone team left standing from the conference in the CFP. His team has compiled a 13-2 record to date, with both losses coming to Georgia, first in the regular season then in the SEC Championship Game. The Longhorns lacked a regular-season win over a team in the final CFP top 25, but of course got two such wins against the Tigers and Sun Devils.
The latter of those games was a narrow escape, requiring double overtime and a questionable no-call for targeting in the fourth quarter to finally vanquish Arizona State, 39-31.
Big-Play Secondary
Few defensive backfields in the country combine a mountain of interceptions with efficient limitation of opposing passing games like Texas’ does. The Longhorns are the only team in the country to both intercept at least 20 passes and hold opponents to less than 170 yards passing per game.
Texas’ 21 picks rank second in college football. Cornerback and consensus first-team All-American Jahdae Barron is tied for the team lead in interceptions with five and has added 61 tackles to a team-high 11 pass breakups. Strong safety Andrew Mukuba will be seen playing sideline to sideline, equaling Barron’s five interceptions while adding 63 tackles, four tackles for loss, six PBUs and a forced fumble.
Mukuba’s running mate at safety, Michael Taaffe, is a seamless centerfielder, amassing 73 tackles, 5.5 TFLs, two sacks and two interceptions with 10 PBUs in 2024. That core is complemented by nickel Jaylon Guilbeau and corner Malik Muhammad to round out the secondary in the 4-2-5 scheme of defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski.
Behind their efforts and that of the Longhorns’ pass rush (more on that shortly), Texas is No. 3 nationally in passing yards allowed per game (166.1) and No. 1 in passing yards allowed per attempt (5.5). Jeremiah Smith and Ohio State’s passing game has been unstoppable through two playoff games, but the Buckeyes face one of the country’s truly elite pass defenses in the Cotton Bowl.
Daunting Defensive Front
Middle linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. headlines Texas' front six. (Credit: Ricardo B. Brazziell/American-Statesman/USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
Texas’ secondary is great, but the Longhorns wouldn’t be No. 4 nationally in scoring defense (14.5 points allowed per game) and No. 3 in total defense (277.7 yards allowed per game) without a great front six.
Middle linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. is one of the premier game-wrecking linebackers in the SEC, racking up 107 tackles with 16 TFLs, both team-highs, to go with 7.5 sacks, an interception and four forced fumbles. He missed the cut for the big five All-America teams but was a first-team All-American per the Athletic and Sports Illustrated, landing first-team All-SEC honors from the media.
Defensive tackle Alfred Collins gives Texas a second first-team All-SEC performer in its front six, the 320-pound behemoth collecting 53 tackles, 5.5 TFLs, a sack and seven PBUs this season. The Longhorns have allowed just 3.2 yards per carry this year, good for 14th nationally.
More than the run-stopping abilities of its front, Texas has tidal waves of talent to get after opposing quarterbacks. The Longhorns’ 44 sacks are fourth in the country. They have four players with at least 5.5 quarterback takedowns in 2024, including Hill, defensive end Trey Moore (6.5), defensive end Barryn Sorrell (5.5) and Colin Simmons, who leads the team with nine sacks and beat out Jeremiah Smith for the Shaun Alexander Freshman of the Year Award.
Vaunted Offensive Line with Inconsistencies
Texas’ offensive line is touted as one of the nation’s best.
The Longhorns finished the year as one of three finalists for the Joe Moore Award, given annually to the best offensive line in the country. Left tackle Kelvin Banks Jr. is a projected first-round pick in the 2025 NFL draft and backed up that stock by taking unanimous All-American honors. But the unit and Texas’ ground game is not perfect.
On five separate occasions this year, the Longhorns have rushed for less than 3.5 yards per carry in a game. They’ve dipped below two yards per carry thrice, twice against Georgia – Banks was out for the second game but not the first – and against Arizona State in the quarterfinals. Texas was without starting right tackle Cameron Williams against Arizona State due to a knee injury.
All that being noted, Day isn’t sleeping on the Longhorns’ ground game. Tre Wisner (1,018 yards, 4.9 yards per carry) and Jaydon Blue (774 yards, 5.5 per carry) lead the charge out of the backfield.
“I look at their offensive line, the coaches, their running backs, and I know that they're very, very talented,” Day said. “They're very good. So we're going to have to be at our best.”
Ohio State is the No. 2 yard-per-carry run defense in college football. If the Buckeyes are indeed at their best, they can make the Texas offense one-dimensional and allow defensive ends JT Tuimoloau and Jack Sawyer – who have a combined 7.5 sacks in Ohio State’s two playoff games – to get after Ewers. OSU had eight sacks as a team against Oregon.
The Longhorns are tied for 81st in sacks allowed per game at 2.2.
