Why Ohio State’s run to national championship game doesn’t happen without Michigan

All it took to ignite Ohio State was a big slice of indignity and a little bit of pepper spray.

The Buckeyes have Michigan to thank for their tear through the first 12-team College Football Playoff, bringing them 60 minutes from the program’s first national title in a decade after beating Texas 28-14 in the Cotton Bowl semifinal.

“I don’t think, without going through those things, we would have come through the way we did in the fourth quarter. And now we have an opportunity to play for a national championship, and I couldn’t be prouder of our guys,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said. “But we gotta finish this thing.”

Ohio State’s season began alongside buzz, confirmed by athletic director Ross Bjork, that it had invested $20 million into its roster. The Buckeyes had enough talent and experience to make a case as one of the best college teams in decades.

Running backs Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson had combined for 5,475 career rushing yards and 66 touchdowns. Judkins had arrived as a transfer from Ole Miss to give the Buckeyes a freakish 1-2 punch in the backfield. Safety Caleb Downs, a five-star prospect who earned freshman All-America honors at Alabama a season ago, didn’t stick around to find out what life in Tuscaloosa would be like after Nick Saban and came to Columbus.

Edge rushers Jack Sawyer and JT Tuimoloau returned to school to chase a title after combining for 25.5 sacks in their first three seasons. Receiver Emeka Egbuka came back, too, and was initially considered the headliner of the passing game after starring alongside first-round pick Marvin Harrison Jr. last season. But they all also came back to beat Michigan, after going 0-3 against the Wolverines and watching their hated rival march through them last season on the way to the national title.

Quarterback Will Howard arrived with plenty of experience but even more to prove. A two-year starter at Kansas State, he was arguably the Big 12’s best returning quarterback in 2023, but the Wildcats planned to move ahead with star freshman Avery Johnson after benching Howard at midseason.

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For most of this season, Ohio State looked good but not great, and never as dominant as its roster suggested.

Against Michigan in the season finale, the Buckeyes looked more intent on sending a message and beating their rival at the line of scrimmage than actually winning a football game. Egbuka and exceptionally talented freshman receiver Jeremiah Smith were afterthoughts, combining for just 86 yards on nine catches. Michigan marched down the field in the final minutes and kicked a game-winning field goal with less than a minute left.

After the game, Sawyer — a lifelong Ohio State fan and thus a lifetime Michigan hater — snatched a Michigan flag being waved by a Wolverines player. A brawl that had started when Michigan attempted to plant a flag at midfield reignited.

As his most hated rival celebrated on his home field, he was left helplessly screaming expletives as Ohio State staffers encouraged him to make his way down the home tunnel. Police eventually used pepper spray on both teams to break up the melee at midfield. Cameras caught Ohio State coach Ryan Day, who was on the other side of the field from the fracas, asking a simple question as players ran by him to the locker room.

“What happened?”

He might as well have been talking about the Buckeyes season.

But now? The scarlet and gray are heavy favorites in the title game, with Sawyer leading the way. It was his sack, forced fumble, scoop and score that sealed the game in the final minutes at the expense of Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers, his former roommate who spent a season in Columbus before transferring back home to Texas.

“There’s some guys on this team that I believe will become legends in Ohio State history,” Day said after the win on Friday.

The list of players who left Columbus as legends without a win over Michigan is a short one, but it might grow this season.

Michigan 13, Ohio State 10 is on the short list of the most painful losses in college football history. For Ohio State, the only silver lining to Michigan’s title a season ago was that it then lost 13 NFL Draft picks and head coach Jim Harbaugh to the next level. All the pieces were in place for the Buckeyes to deliver a beatdown on the way to their own title run.

Instead, players like Sawyer will have to swallow the realization that they’ll end their careers at Ohio State without beating Michigan.

Now, though, they might leave as national champions.

“The story of this team is yet to be told,” Day said. “No great accomplishment is ever achieved without going through adversity.”

Ohio State is playing like each player on the roster bottled up how he felt when the clock hit zeroes in the regular-season finale and is cracking it open before every snap to take a nice, long sniff. The Buckeyes blitzed Tennessee in the first round, racing to a 21-0 lead in less than a quarter on the way to a dominant 42-17 win. Less than two weeks later, they jumped all over No. 1 seed Oregon, which had beaten them earlier that season, scoring the game’s first 34 points. It was one of the greatest halves any team has ever played. For a second consecutive round, this terrifying roster finally looked scary on the field.

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That doesn’t happen without the haunting loss to Michigan, which laid bare the Buckeyes’ flaws and made them embrace their greatest strength: a deep group of receivers who can’t be covered. Meanwhile, Sawyer jumps every snap like somebody is waving a Michigan flag six inches from his face.

In Friday’s win against Texas, the Buckeyes didn’t look quite like the same juggernaut, struggling with a running game once again stuck in the mud, a parade of drive-killing penalties and a passing game that never quite solved a salty Texas secondary that has given up 100 yards to just one receiver all season.

But with their season and legacies on the line, it was Sawyer making the play to keep the season alive and continue the march to the title game, where Notre Dame awaits.

The Buckeyes finally became the team everyone feared they would be when the Playoff began. If they capture a title in Atlanta later this month, they ought to send a thank-you card to Ann Arbor.

It doesn’t happen without 13-10.

(Photo: Ron Jenkins / Getty Images)