Hail to the Buckeyes! Now I am fully and righteously justified in being an insufferable braggart and prick, just as so many of you have claimed Ohio St. fans to be, so I might as well enjoy it.
There’s a lot to admire about Oregon’s program, but let’s be real: their roster is a bunch of 3 star recruits that USC, UCLA, and Cal passed over. Now it’s not like they don’t know this. Their system reflects the fact that they have to be smart and efficient, and maximize their opportunities on the field, to overcome their talent deficit. In my opinion, their offense is as much a psychological attack as an offensive attack. They want the ball to start the game, and they want to immediately put you on your heels. They’re damn near unstoppable on opening drives. They want to march right down the field on you and leave your defense questioning everything the coaching staff has told them in practice.
This works great when they’re playing Jimbo Fisher. It was much less effective against Urban Meyer. And like Desmond Bryant said after the game, with all the analysis and Xs and Os, you can’t forget that football comes down to physicality, and Ohio St. was just more physical on both sides of the ball. Oregon’s poor NT got beat up all game, even by Cardale Jones.
A decisive win, and with that, sanity has been restored to college football. And America.
Agreed; it can happen. But why should a team have to overcome a disadvantage, and “climb the mountain” out of the unranked pit? Why not start the season with a level playing field?
USC and UCLA probably; Cal, definitely not. There’s nobody on Oregon’s roster that Sonny Dykes wouldn’t take in a heartbeat. (One of their top recruits of recent years, Arik Armistead, was a soft verbal to Cal but jumped to the Ducks at the last minute.)
I couldn’t believe what I saw when that happened. Once the pain and disappointment is over, that guy’s teammates are going to get a lot of mileage reminding him how he got run over by a QB.
I didn’t see that comin’! Good job, Bucks, you earned that. I was hoping for the Pac to bring home the championship, but now just happy is wasn’t the SEC.
Cal? That’s kind of weird to include Cal in that sentence.
Ohio State certainly recruits more talent than Oregon, but I think your comment is overstating the situation, they are usually somewhere between 15 and 25 for class ranking and typically have a substantial number of 4 stars (e.g. 10).
I agree with this and I said it before the game, Oregon has a great offense and a decent defense, but if they play a team with a really good defense they will lose.
It’s the same reason they lost to Auburn, and it’s the same reason I don’t think TCU or Baylor would have made it to the NC, a really good defense really does shut down a great offense.
Well, that was very disappointing. At some point it will be possible to look back on this amazing season – Pac-12 champions, Rose Bowl champions, Heisman Trophy – but today just really sucks. Butters said it best. Nothing to do now but wait for the next near-inevitable kick in the balls when Mariota leaves for the NFL.
Have to give all the credit to Ohio State, they dominated both lines of scrimmage the whole game. Statistically over the course of the season their defense wasn’t any better than some teams we dropped 50 on, but clearly they peaked at the right time. Congratulations to the Buckeyes and their fans.
Cardale Jones, Tj Barrett, Joey Bosa and Ezekiel Elliot are all underclassmen who will be back. OSU has a lot of young talent at DL, DB and LB to keep the defense up.
The only big loses next year will be Braxton Miller, who despite having a year left of eligibility, has found himself a third wheel at QB and is already looking to transfer. Devin Smith at WR, Heuerman at TE and Hale from the OL.
Being National Champions should help the next recruiting class as well.
Ohio State won the first **ever **Championship, and that is something the pro BCS haters can never take way from us. (I’m looking at you, ESPN analysts) That makes me a very happy panda.
It’s the first ever “College Football Playoff” championship. The NCAA treats it the same as the other “college football championships” OSU has won over the years.
In fact…
Only as a technicality; in terms of “who can give out national championship rings”, the NCAA says that “only the teams named National Champions by the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) or ‘a national wire-service poll’ (i.e. the AP) can”. BCS had a deal with AFCA where its voters had to vote the BCS champion #1, but as far as I know, there is no such deal with CFP, although I doubt one is necessary.
Since Ohio State has three #1 QBs coming back next year, I certainly do expect at least one of them to go elsewhere.
What I find ridiculous is the media panting about whether Jones will declare for the NFL. He’s played three games. Big games? Yes. Played great? Yes. Three starts even at the very highest level of college football does not make him ready for the NFL.
This just in from the Department of You’ve Got To Be Freaking Kidding Me. Link goes to Auburn football homepage, which in turn links to no less than SIX pre-pre-preseason rankings for 2015! Can’t we even wait for our hangovers from last night to go away??
What, are you kidding? Sports Illustrated almost always publishes a Top 5 list for the following year the week after the championship game…in women’s basketball.
Besides, National Letter of Intent day is coming up, and the schools want players to know that their school has a decent shot of winning the championship, “especially with you here.”
Chris Fowler, who did the play-by-play for ESPN absolutely sucked. How did he ever get the job? He just kept making mistakes. I don’t think he even knew where the field marks were. “That will make it third and short.” (With 4 yard to go.)
Just curious which ESPN coverage of the title game everybody watched. I really enjoyed the version with no commentators, just the sounds of the game as if you were in the stadium. They even showed the bands at halftime.
I started watching one of the “talking heads” channels - I think it was the one with the ESPN personalities - but when they spent too much time talking about the details of a play and not enough time mentioning what actually happened, I switched to the main broadcast.
I have been very busy working long hours at work lately, and I did not get a chance to see the game, but I did want to say congratulations to the OSU Buckeyes. Well done!
