The 2023 Cotton Bowl Classic was one of the best games of the season.
Of course you remember it. Tulane upset Southern Cal 46-45 in what was truly a classic down in Jerryworld as part of the now-defunct New Year's Six. Since bowl games are annual events, this is the only Cotton Bowl that 2023 is required to remember.
Except the Buckeyes played in that game too, 361 days later on the same field and inside the same calendar. It's one of those postseason glitches, similar to how we only choose to remember one of the two Fiesta Bowls Ohio State played in during 2016.
Selective memory is good for mental health, but ignoring the second Cotton Bowl of 2023 is also valid.
First, Kyle McCord - now an early entrant for the NFL Draft - transferred out of Columbus during bowl practices. Second, Biletnikoff winner Marvin Harrison Jr. opted out of playing in the game, leaving Devin Brown taking snaps from - third - someone who wasn't Carson Hinzman, the Buckeyes' center for the balance of the 2023 season.
Fourth, Brown was sacked and taken down by Johnny Walker (on a personal note: been there) and barely played a quarter. So - fifth - Lincoln Keinholz was thrust into that situation and it went about as well as anyone could have expected. The second 2023 Cotton Bowl was a game, sure. Technically.
"Natty or Bust" has 60 minutes to reach and issue a verdict. We have reached the closing argument.
But it was necessary and consequential for the 12 months which followed, culminating in the Buckeyes' return to Jerryworld 378 days later. It took one drive and about four minutes for Ohio State to outscore its entire output from the previous Cotton Bowl Classic - which we're choosing not to recognize out of respect for Tulane.
Except we should remember some of it. Jack Sawyer was unblockable and left Arlington with three sacks, three TFLs and cresting NFL Draft Stock after being the best player on the field. One Cotton Bowl Classic later, he wasn't able to replicate that forgotten, although dominating performance.
He'll have to live with his performance against Texas forever. There are worse fates.
The Missouri Cotton Bowl you've watched maybe almost once - and the effort Sawyer left on the turf that night - might have been required for Ohio State's Draftable seniors to stick around for one more season. While they didn't win the conference or even make it to Indy, they will play for the national championship on Monday.
There were other, more complete paths to Atlanta - but the level of insufferability required to be mad about the path they took isn't something you should aspire to hold onto. Mopping the floor with Missouri in the second 2023 Cotton Bowl may have erased our current version of the future.
Securing Gold Pants in either season also creates a different path. You want to trade this one for another with no guarantees? Give that the Time Squad treatment and you'll end up with a No Thanks.
Ending 2023 on a tepid high note with NY6 swag might have been enough to send the recruiting class of 2021 off to the NFL. But it largely stuck around because of how empty their legacy was, and one year later Natty or Bust has 60 minutes to reach and issue a verdict. We have reached the closing argument.
Belated congratulations to the Green Wave for winning the true 2023 Cotton Bowl Classic. The second one is buried beneath the rubble in the Lost City of the 2023 Ohio State Buckeyes' season. It preserved important fossils we're afforded the privilege of ignoring.
But the 2025 Cotton Bowl is forever. Just like the 2015 Sugar Bowl, it was played once and comes back to life whenever we decide we need it again. History is written by winners, and Monday night will provide the opening and closing pages of this season's book.
Two teams left. One of them is yours. Let's get National Championship Situational.
OPENER | THERE'S ALWAYS THIS YEAR
Sep 23, 2023 South Bend: Emeka Egbuka makes a catch against Notre Dame cornerback Cam Hart and linebacker JD Bertrand during the 4th quarter at Notre Dame Stadium. © Kyle Robertson/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Penn State wide receiver Omari Evans almost registered the first downfield statistic for his unit of the Orange Bowl with 33 seconds remaining. It happened when Notre Dame cornerback Christian Gray dove and picked off a pass intended for him.
Zero catches, almost one tackle. And that was it for the entire PSU receivers' unit.
The room failed to register a single reception against the Irish, a statistic which should inform a dominating win for the opposition...except that Penn State was trying to get into field goal range to beat the Irish and face the Cotton Bowl winner when Drew Allar threw it to the wrong team.
The Nittany Lions didn't average five yards a carry on the ground and didn't have a 100-yard rusher, either. Penalties weren't an issue. How was this game close? Notre Dame escaped a non-military academy this way in college football's Final Four!
Its best offensive player, tailback Jeremiyah Love entered the evening with a bum knee. Going back to his 98-yard touchdown run against Indiana in the opening round of the CFP, Love has since carried the ball 23 times for just 75 yards. They're winning?
Quarterback Riley Leonard has 43 carries for 145 yards in the Irish's three playoff games, so that makes 66 carries for barely more than three yards apiece carrying the Irish to the title game - where they will face an offense whose third WR option has nine catches for 116 yards in the CFP alone.
| RUNNING BACK | CARRIES | YARDS | AVERAGE | TOUCHDOWNS | LONG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JEREMIYAH LOVE (ND) | 25 | 173 | 6.92 | 2 | 98 |
| JADARIAN PRICE (ND) | 28 | 82 | 2.93 | 0 | 20 |
| ANEYAS WILLIAMS (ND) | 8 | 45 | 5.62 | 0 | 15 |
| TREVEYON HENDERSON (OSU) | 24 | 216 | 9.0 | 4 | 66 |
| QUINSHON JUDKINS (OSU) | 36 | 155 | 4.3 | 4 | 18 |
The Irish will not be facing Penn State's air attack on Monday. They will be dealing with QuinVeyon Henderkins, who in three CFP games has 60 carries for 371 yards, good for over six yards per rush along with eight touchdowns on the ground. ND's Jadaramiah Prilliams by comparison has racked up 61 carries for 30 yards, two rushing touchdowns and under five yards per touch.
Both teams have significant injuries along the offensive line, where Ohio State has been operating without its best lineman LT Josh Simmons since the first Oregon game, and Rimington winner Seth McLaughlin since the Northwestern game.
Notre Dame doesn't have the best version of its starters operating either. They're still winning.
And if any of this has weaponizing your confidence, you've fallen into a trap set by a sneaky leprechaun which has less than a 1% chance of being called for a holding penalty on Monday night. Notre Dame is beating playoff teams - along with every non-MAC opponent it has faced this season - because it is a worthy title contender and has navigated the most arduous path to this moment the sport's history.
Penn State had shortcomings, as did Georgia and Indiana. Notre Dame won those games because it dictated how they would be played. Ohio State beat Tennessee, Oregon and Texas the same way. There's nothing mysterious or gimmicky about why these are the two teams remaining.
There's nothing mysterious or gimmicky about why these are the two teams remaining in the Playoff.
The Buckeyes will complete passes to their wide receivers on Monday night. Ohio State's defense will be formidable and frustrate a lot of what Notre Dame tries to do. The Fighting Irish will do the same. Both teams will approach the game determined to be in command, rather than be forced to react.
Notre Dame can win if it's able to do what it generally does in talent-equatedish meetings, which is force opponents to play them on their terms. Penn State played directly into the Irish's strengths after getting a quick 10-0 lead. They lost.
Michigan did this recently to Ohio State too, because the Buckeyes were just a little too fucking complicit in allowing that to happen. There's a unique danger to this recurring if the coaching staff's learned lessons from Nov 30 expire after three demonstratively different games. The Buckeyes have been playing on their terms since then.
If Michigan's brutal lesson remains for a fourth and final game, it will mean Ohio State has retained the memory of what happens when it allows the best version of itself to remain sheathed. Because that version of the Buckeyes finishes off this heater in the hottest way possible.
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.
Real McCoy sounds like it should be an Irish band, but that expression is probably Scottish and the band was formed in Germany. In 1997 its lead singer was Lisa Cork - who sounds incredibly Irish - but she's from Indianapolis. Lisa is the lead singer with the shorter hair in the video.
The longer-haired lead singer is Vanessa Mason, the band's dedicated lip-syncer - that's pop music in the 1990s, my friends. You read that right, I didn't stutter - and if Vanessa stuttered you wouldn't hear it anyway. She is German. Lisa was the Real McCoy.
One More Time contains a mid-song rap interlude. Let's answer our two questions.
Is the musician in the video actually rapping?
Olaf Jeglitza grew up on the mean streets of West Berlin and goes by O-Jay, which sounds like half of a screwdriver and also the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame R&B group from Canton, OH (they're touring this year!) but alas, he's neither. The video provides no evidence, but it's him on the record. VERDICT: No, inconclusive.
does this mid-song rap interlude slap slap?
Aside from being a triumph of English idioms and Western cultural diversity, Real McCoy and this season's Situational Intermission theme provided us with our prevailing sentiment heading into the 2024 college football season's final game, one which can transfer the crown of Defending National Champion from Ann Arbor to either Columbus or South Bend.
Twenty-seven seasons ago, Ohio State had the team to do this exact thing, robbing Michigan of the glorious lingering aftertaste which comes with being the most recent national tyrant of our shared region. That Buckeye team lost to a miserable, mediocre Mitten State program which robbed it of the opportunity.
The 2024 team somehow followed the same horrifying script, then flipped it thrice because the future is amazing. O-Jay's German rap skills feed our battle cry, and I have no choice but to cling to them. VERDICT: Knieschläge
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.
Heaven's Door. That cold black cloud is comin' down.
Yes, Bob Dylan has a bourbon. Yes, Heaven's Door is an actual distillery and not just lyrics lifted from a song covered by a litany of professional singers and amateur karaoke terrorists.
And yes, the song and this bourbon are about reaching The End, which is what will take place Monday night for the longest college football season ever. The Buckeyes were the first-ever team to go 14-0 in 2002, and a dozen years later they completed the first-ever College Football Playoff atop a dais in a confetti storm.
A decade later, they're poised to make history in a way the program is accustomed to - both in beating Notre Dame and winning national titles in ways that haven't been done previously. Losing to Michigan, questioning everything and then...this run.
The 2006 Buckeyes ran the table and waited 51 days before losing their next and final game to Florida for the national title. The 2024 Buckeyes will play the Irish 51 days after a loss for the ages, which feels both surreal and distant. There's never been a title run like this before, so hopefully you've enjoyed it.
No matter what happens Monday, this all becomes past tense. One team will be immortalized.
The Heaven's Door bottle I received was 70/22/8 corn/rye/barley, sourced in Tennessee (that KY distillery wasn't open yet) and aged sixish years. Dried apricots on the nose, sweet heat on the palate - the high rye comes blazing through - and an oaky finish very common among TN whiskies. Suitable for celebrating a season well-lived.
CLOSER | THE DEVIL YOU KNOW
August 31, 2024: Caleb Downs celebrates after sacking Akron QB Ben Finley in the 1st half of the 2024 season opener at Ohio Stadium. © Barbara J. Perenic/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
The regular season ended seven weeks ago. Ohio State is still playing!
That passage of time is normally good for over half a football schedule. Eighteen seasons ago, the Game of the Century in 2006 and the Glendale Massacre were also separated by seven weeks. That span included a layoff, awards banquets and holidays. No games. Just rust.
Eighteen years later, the same span included three weeks of gagging on the Choke of the Century, followed by four weeks of reckoning not only what Nov 30 meant for the arc of this season, but now - every Saturday which preceded it. Layoffs? Layoffs?
The layoff didn't happen after Michigan. It was embedded throughout Ohio State's regular season.
Ryan Day's staff attacked every moment of its 12 scheduled games with this Monday night in mind. It required a maddening level of patience and restraint - it probably cost them the rivalry game - but it's gotten them to where and how they are now.
Everyone knew the expanded postseason model would be taxing for the programs that earned the right to participate in all of it. The series you're reading right now was all over that forecast, maintaining a five-week sustainability tracker specifically for the Saturdays Ohio State had no business wasting its best players' finite energy against them.
And the staff went a perfect 5-for-5 in that endeavor. What a lot of people missed - I'm separating my shoulder raising my hand with too much gusto here - was Ohio State's staff gambled and treated the entire regular season as a sustainability repository for what was an unpromised postseason run, despite the expectations we all had for this team.
Like, if we do this properly the extra fuel we've saved all year will come in handy. Sure!
You've heard how Ohio State ranks 134 out of 134 FBS teams in opponent penalties, but may not realize they rank 124th nationally in plays per game. Week after week, we questioned their pace of play. The huddles. The total lack of tempo, except during their solitary touchdown against Michigan. That loss in particular served as an indictment of what is clearly now a season-long strategy.
no playoff team is hitting harder than the Buckeyes. It's not even close.
On Nov 30 this tendency fed the worst-case scenario, where not only did Ohio State's total lack of urgency nourish Michigan's undeserved confidence, it did so slowly for a team totally unequipped to come back from a deficit. The Buckeyes conserved their energy at the expense of wasting game time, and they lost because of it.
Seven weeks later, no playoff team is hitting harder than the Buckeyes. It's not even close.
On Friday night the Longhorns' players and coaches were awestruck by the ferocity, with head coach Steve Sarkisian going so far as to beg for a targeting flag on a play where Sonny Styles permissibly lit up his tight end in the chest with his forearm. Texas was not ready. A hit that hard had to be targeting, right? Wrong.
The Buckeyes erased Tennessee's two best weapons from their 1st round game by just being, shall we say, ethically aggressive in the way they made contact. Oregon's playmakers were on the sideline nursing collision symptoms before the sun went into hiding.
Texas was exhausted in the 4th quarter. Ohio State was resilient on both sides of the ball.
That's been the knock against Day's teams. Outside of every single Penn State game ever (#fraaaaaaamesjanklinnnnnnn) it's hard to recall an Ohio State 4th quarter any Buckeye fan would rewatch for pleasure, up until this Cotton Bowl.
Scheme that isn't designed to lose to Michigan and good-enough execution, sure. But the fuel sourced from the 100 or so snaps they saved while playing Sparty, Nebraska - eek - Iowa and even Indiana slower than we wanted them to definitely help.
Teams have a finite number of plays in them before performance is impacted by wear and tear. By this measure, Tennessee played two full games more than the Buckeyes did by the time they played each other. Oregon played one more game on top of also playing in Indianapolis when it arrived in Pasadena.
The Longhorns accumulated three additional games' worth of mileage in Dallas. It matters. If you're wondering about Notre Dame, they've played one more quarter than Ohio State. That's it. As banged up as they are, Marcus Freeman drove his team on cruise control this season.
This isn't to suggest Ohio State's deliberately sluggish offensive pace is what created this moment - they're loaded with talent and depth and have Chip Kelly and Ryan Day's combined playbook. A football season is a series of moments, and at Oregon and against Michigan the Buckeyes were again stuck in a recurring moment they couldn't escape. That has nothing to do with conserving energy.
The regular season ended seven weeks ago. Ohio State is still playing, And the tank is full.
They could not win late. They could not close out. They shelved their strengths.
And that's the cloud under which Ohio State entered the 2024 postseason seven weeks ago, having squandered two winnable games and a third in Indy which would be left unplayed. That created a question asked by the most optimistic and cynical Buckeye fans alike:
Ohio State struggles to close out important games, and now it has to win four of them in a row?
I did not expect Ryan Day to win four games like this in a row, because he's shown too many times that he does not excel in those circumstances. I fully believed - and have always thought - Evil Ryan Day could do it, and he humiliated Tennessee and Oregon in the first half of the bracket.
ERD barely appeared in Arlington. Ryan Day showed up. Ohio State still beat Texas.
No matter which version of the Buckeyes' head coach is on the sideline in Atlanta, the team he's coaching was prepared, conserved and engineered for the moment. The regular season ended seven weeks ago. Ohio State is still playing. And the tank is full.
Thanks for getting Situational today. Go Bucks. Beat Notre Dame.
