What’s enabled Ohio State to be so dominant in its first two College Football Playoff games? Sonny Styles believes it all starts with how the Buckeyes have prepared.
“I think Coach Day has handled the schedule really well, and I think all the coaches prepared us really well for the games, and I think that shows up in the game,” the Ohio State linebacker said. “I think our preparation has been better than the last two teams we played.”
The Buckeyes’ approach to preparation for their CFP games hasn’t necessarily been different than it was during the regular season, but they’ve buckled down on it with extra urgency knowing they must win to keep their season alive.
“I wouldn't like to say that there's been anything dramatically different,” tight end Gee Scott Jr. “But the goal is to, week by week, you gotta upgrade. That's the big motto that we have on this team that you have to upgrade week by week. That the team that you were last week or the team that you were in Week 5 just isn't good enough to compete in the College Football Playoffs. So our mindset is to get better and better and better.”
As the Buckeyes prepare for their third game of the College Football Playoff against Texas in the Cotton Bowl, they can’t allow their preparation to be any less meticulous than it was for Tennessee and Oregon.
The external perception of Ohio State as a national championship contender has changed drastically in just two weeks. Going into the CFP, there was more talk about the possibility of Ryan Day being fired than there was about Ohio State winning it all after the Buckeyes finished their regular season with a loss to Michigan and failed to make the Big Ten Championship Game. Two decisive CFP wins later, however, Ohio State is considered the favorite to win the national championship, holding -110 odds to win it all at FanDuel and DraftKings as of Sunday afternoon.
Ohio State had every reason to enter the Tennessee game with a chip on its shoulder with all the criticism the Buckeyes took after their fourth straight loss in The Game. The Buckeyes had a clear point to prove against Oregon after losing to the Ducks in the regular season. Now, however, it’s Texas who’s holding the underdog card with few doubting the Buckeyes’ ability to beat the Longhorns in the CFP semifinals.
But the Buckeyes can’t afford to let complacency or overconfidence surface now. While Ohio State should beat Texas if it plays as well as it did in its first two CFP games, anything less than that same level of play could end the Buckeyes’ championship run. The Longhorns present plenty of danger to the Buckeyes with a defense that ranks third nationally in yards allowed per game (277.7) and fourth nationally in points allowed per game (14.5) to go along with a top-20 offense led by its Quinn Ewers-driven passing attack.
So Day is telling his players to block out the outside noise and focus on preparing just as hard as they did for the first two games.
“We have to make sure we stay focused because just a couple weeks ago, I don't think too many people in the country believed in this team. And now the sentiment’s changing, and that can't affect how we go to work every day,” Day said Friday. “Has nothing to do with how we prepare in this game. We've got to stay focused on our process and continue to do what we've been doing the last couple of weeks.”
When @Dan_Hope asked Ryan Day about how his team will perform with the "same edge" now that Ohio State is considered national title favorites in the College Football Playoff, Day provided one of the lengthier answers I've heard from him:
— Chase Brown (@chaseabrown__) January 3, 2025
"I mentioned it to the team the other
Ohio State’s players have taken Day’s message to heart and say they haven’t allowed their impressive results against the Volunteers and Ducks to change their approach entering the Cotton Bowl.
“One thing (Ohio State’s coaches) don't allow us to do around here is get complacent or to be comfortable with wins,” Scott said Sunday. “Whenever we win these games, (Day) says ‘Enjoy this win for 24 hours. Be able to feel it, it's important to celebrate your victories. But when you come back in here 24 hours later, we're on to the next week.’ It's too competitive out here. Playing at Ohio State, you can't lose football games. And so the whole goal is to celebrate the victory but get your head down and get right back to work whether you win or you lose or whatever it looked like last week, to get your head back down and get back to work and show up for Tuesday practice and get ready to roll again.”
As Day said Friday, Ohio State shouldn’t need any extra motivation entering the Cotton Bowl. A trip to the national championship game is on the line, and many Buckeyes have drawn motivation simply out of the desire to keep this year’s team together as long as they can. For all the talk about ignoring the outside noise, however, the Buckeyes have seemingly played their best football this season when they’ve felt slighted or doubted in some way.
There are some Ohio State players who have personal revenge storylines to draw extra motivation from this week. Caleb Downs lost to Texas last year when he was at Alabama. Will Howard’s Kansas State teams went 0-4 against Texas during his four years in Manhattan, and the Ohio State quarterback will use that history as fuel just as he derived extra motivation from Ohio State’s regular-season loss to Oregon last week.
“There's definitely, personally for me, a little extra motivation there because I never got the chance to beat these guys,” Howard said. “Played them four years, and they're always a good team, but none of those games were unwinnable. Last year we lost in overtime. So definitely excited to get another chance at these guys.”
“We have to make sure we stay focused because just a couple weeks ago, I don't think too many people in the country believed in this team. And now the sentiment’s changing, and that can't affect how we go to work every day.”– Ryan Day on the importance of Staying focused
By and large, though, it’s up to the Buckeyes to bottle up the same edge they played with against Tennessee and Oregon and bring that with them to Dallas. And that’s exactly what they plan to do.
“I think Coach Day has been doing a good job of making sure there's no let-off. The last two weeks really don't matter if you lose this one. So we're not really focused on anything that's happened in the past,” Styles said. “It's a clean slate, and we're just focused on beating Texas. They've got a really good team, a really talented team, and we know that we've got to bring our best to be able to win that game.”
