Ohio State is going to need strong showings in all three phases of the game to beat Tennessee in the first round of the College Football Playoff on Saturday night.
The Buckeyes’ offense needs to step up in a big way as it takes on the nation’s fourth-ranked defense after scoring just 10 points against Michigan. The Buckeyes need more from their special teams than they got against the Wolverines, too, as Jayden Fielding missed two crucial field goals in that 13-10 loss. And while Ohio State’s defense has been the best in the country, it will also need to bring its A-game as it faces one of its toughest tests of the year against the Volunteers’ eighth-ranked offense.
Ohio State has more all-around talent than Tennessee – it’s still the most talented team in the country – but whether those talented Buckeyes perform up to their ability on Saturday will determine whether they bounce back from their loss in The Game and take down the Volunteers.
The following Buckeyes, representing all three phases and just about every position group on the team, stand out as the players who Ohio State most needs to raise their game to win its CFP opener.
The Interior Offensive Line
We’ll start with the elephant in the room. Ohio State’s interior offensive line was its weakest position group in its last two games of the regular season after center Seth McLaughlin went down with a season-ending injury, and it remains the Buckeyes’ biggest question mark by far entering the College Football Playoff.
Ohio State is effectively down its two best interior offensive linemen because Donovan Jackson moved outside to left tackle after Josh Simmons’ season-ending injury, leaving the Buckeyes with a patchwork group that is shaky at all three positions between the tackles.
Luke Montgomery is expected to see playing time with the first-team offensive line for the first time all season as the Buckeyes look for improved play at guard, but Ohio State’s apparent plan to rotate Montgomery, Tegra Tshabola and Austin Siereveld at guard against Tennessee shows the Buckeyes’ tepid confidence in all three. Carson Hinzman is set to continue manning the center position as he has since McLaughlin went down, but the Buckeyes need him to be better than he was against Michigan, as he had several off-target snaps while also struggling as a blocker against the Wolverines’ star-studded defensive tackle tandem of Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant.
Tennessee’s defensive tackles aren’t quite as elite as Michigan’s, but they’re still good enough to expose the Buckeyes’ interior offensive line weakness. Ohio State can’t realistically expect a dominant effort from its offensive line against Tennessee – whose tackle tandem of Jackson and Josh Fryar also faces a major test against one of the nation’s top pass-rushers, James Pearce Jr. – but it needs to at least hold its own for the Buckeyes’ offense to get back on track.
“When you get into playoff games, obviously the offensive line play is critical. We need these guys to play really, really well,” Ryan Day said Wednesday. “I feel like yesterday was good mojo coming off the field, good energy coming off the field that way, and they know how they need to play in this game. Not that everything has to be perfect, but we've got to rock off the ball and knock people back. They have a good front. And so, might we swing and miss every once in a while? OK, but we're not going to swing and miss by not being aggressive. We're going to be aggressive. We're going to go after these guys and making sure that we're moving back the line of scrimmage.”
QB Will Howard
Teams that win in the College Football Playoff are typically led by great quarterback play, so Howard’s performance will be a major factor in determining how successful the Buckeyes are against Tennessee and beyond.
For the most part, Howard has been the quarterback the Buckeyes have needed him to be this season, completing 72.3% of his passing attempts for 2,860 yards and 27 touchdowns while also running for seven touchdowns. His shaky performance against Michigan in which he completed just 19 of 33 passes for 175 yards and one touchdown with two interceptions, however, has sparked questions about whether he’ll be the QB the Buckeyes need him to be in the CFP.
Against a stout Tennessee run defense, Ohio State needs more production from its passing game than it got against Michigan. The Buckeyes don’t necessarily need Howard to make any spectacular throws, but they do need Howard to avoid making poor decisions with the football as he did on his two interceptions against Michigan, one of which led directly to the Wolverines’ only touchdown of the game. Day also believes Howard’s leadership will be crucial on the CFP stage.
“We've let Will know he needs to be a great leader,” Day said. “He's been a great leader. But this is where quarterbacks really step up. And there's a lot of keys to this game, but one of them is his leadership in this game. And again, we don't need him to do anything extraordinary. He's got to take care of the football. He's got to get the ball into our playmakers' hands in space. And then he's got to deliver on third down, red zone and the two-minute drills.”
RB TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins
Knowing that Ohio State’s offensive line is likely to have its share of struggles against Tennessee’s strong defensive front, the Buckeyes need their highly touted tandem of running backs to play up to their ability and make things happen whenever their blockers give them an opportunity.
Ohio State’s struggles to run the ball against Michigan have been blamed mostly on the Buckeyes’ blocking and play calling, but neither Henderson nor Judkins did much to transcend those issues, as they combined to force just one missed tackle (Judkins) against the Wolverines, per Pro Football Focus.
As a running back duo that’s supposed to be the best in the country, Henderson and Judkins need to be weapons out of the backfield even if the Buckeyes struggle up front. The good news is they’re both fresher than they’ve ever been before at this point in the year after splitting carries throughout the regular season, giving Day confidence that their best football of the year is still to come.
“I think it's important for them to have their best game this year in this game, both TreVeyon and Quinshon,” Day said. “They have had a good season this year, they've done some really good things, but now we got to be at our best and we got to run downhill … Three-yard runs got to be five-yard runs.”
WR Emeka Egbuka
Jeremiah Smith would be the obvious name to list here as Ohio State’s top offensive star, but Egbuka might be just as important to the Buckeyes’ offensive efforts against Tennessee. As the receiver who’s often the go-to target in short to intermediate situations, Egbuka could be particularly crucial if Ohio State’s offensive line struggles in pass protection.
Egbuka was one of the best receivers in college football for the first half of the regular season, catching 40 passes for 526 yards and six touchdowns, but his production dropped in the second half of the year as he caught only 20 passes for 217 yards and three touchdowns. Not coincidentally, Ohio State’s offense was also far less consistent in the second half of the season.
For Ohio State’s offense to get back on track in the CFP, the re-emergence of Egbuka as a consistent impact player could be vital.
DE Jack Sawyer and JT Tuimoloau
Sawyer and Tuimoloau have both played well as seniors, particularly in the second half of the season, but there’s one stat that sticks out as a glaring black mark for Ohio State’s defense in both of its two losses this season: Zero sacks. A lack of sacks has been a recurring problem for Ohio State in big games in recent years; changing that in this year’s CFP starts with the Buckeyes’ senior defensive end tandem.
That said, Tennessee’s offensive line looks plenty beatable in pass protection as the Volunteers have given up 26 sacks this season. Sacks by the opposing defense have been a common thread in their two losses, as they allowed four sacks to Arkansas and five sacks to Georgia.
In what’s projected to be a tight, lower-scoring game, making tackles behind the line of scrimmage to get Tennessee off-schedule and force punts could go a long way toward an Ohio State win. The Buckeyes need their experienced defensive end tandem to lead that effort and make the game-changing plays that they’ve shown they’re capable of but haven’t always made consistently.
LB Sonny Styles
Stopping the run will be priority No. 1 for Ohio State’s defense against Tennessee, which ranks ninth in the country with 232 rushing yards per game, and the Buckeyes’ linebackers will play a critical role in those efforts. Tennessee will force Ohio State’s linebackers to cover a lot of ground with its spread offense, in which it lines its receivers up all the way out to the sideline yet runs the ball on more than 60% of its plays.
While Cody Simon has been rock-solid at the Mike linebacker position for the Buckeyes, Styles has had an up-and-down first year at linebacker after playing safety in his first two years at Ohio State. But his physical skill set makes him well-suited for a matchup like this if he plays assignment-sound football and is quick to diagnose plays.
How well Styles plays will likely play a substantial part in how Ohio State’s run defense plays as a whole, but he’s well-aware of the challenge that lies ahead of him on Saturday.
“It kind of stretches the linebackers outside the box. You get a linebacker apex between the endman and the receiver, so you're coming in from like a wider angle to make the play,” Styles said of the challenge of playing against Tennessee’s offense. “But I think you just got to be sharp with your eyes. When you're coming from that far, you gotta know exactly what you're seeing and once you see you gotta go, because you’ve got a lot of space to make up.”
CB Denzel Burke and Davison Igbinosun
Tennessee’s offensive scheme will also put stress on Ohio State’s cornerbacks because its wide receiver splits will force Burke and Igbinosun – and Jermaine Mathews Jr. if and when he rotates into the game – to play on an island repeatedly, making it important for the Buckeyes’ cornerbacks to be at their best Saturday night following some rough patches during the regular season.
The Volunteers’ receiving corps is arguably the best Ohio State has faced since Oregon torched Burke for 162 yards and two touchdowns, and Igbinosun has been the most penalized cornerback in the entire FBS this season. Nico Iamaleava has a big arm and Tennessee likes to take deep shots in the passing game, so the Buckeyes need their cornerbacks to be sound in one-on-one coverage to avoid giving up big plays.
Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles trusts them to be up to the task.
“Tennessee will challenge us in certain ways, but those guys are on an island all the time,” Knowles said. “Forget who you're playing, it's one-on-one many times out there. I mean, anybody can just step back and throw the ball up in the air. So we have complete confidence in our corners. There are ups and downs in any season, in any career, but those guys are great players, and they're really good people, and they work hard, and they're resilient, and they bounce back, and they're going to have a great game.”
Denzel Burke must be better than he was against Oregon in what might be his toughest matchup since then.
K Jayden Fielding
Considering Ohio State’s last College Football Playoff game was decided by a missed field goal as time expired, we’d be remiss not to mention the importance of the kicking game in this article.
Day left the door open for a kicker change on Wednesday when he said Fielding was still competing for the job with Austin Snyder in practice, but it would come as a surprise if that change actually happens given that Snyder has never attempted a field goal in a game for Ohio State.
Fielding had been reliable for the Buckeyes before the Michigan game, making eight of nine field goal attempts including five of six from 40-plus yards. But his two misses inside of 40 yards against the Wolverines leave questions about how well Ohio State can trust him if it needs him to make a kick with the game on the line in the CFP, especially on Saturday in what will be another high-stakes game played in cold-weather conditions.
Whether he can make kicks when called upon could make the difference between a win and a loss just as it did against Michigan.
“We wouldn't have put him in the game (against Michigan) if we didn't trust him, but he also knows that he's got to do his job,” Day said. ‘Everyone's got to do their job around here, and it's very important to winning games that everyone does their job. His job is to make field goals.”
