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ARLINGTON, Texas – Vegas may have had the Buckeyes ahead of the Longhorns by nearly a touchdown, but Texas coach Steve Sarkisian doesn’t like to think of his team as an underdog in Friday night’s national team semifinal game against Ohio State.
“We don’t talk that way,” Sarkisian said Thursday. “And the reality is that you don’t get any points for being an underdog. You don’t get there (say), ‘Hey, we’re down by five, you’re winning.’ That’s not how it works in our world. You either win or lose the game.
“So our job is to give maximum effort with great attention to detail to make sure we’re in the right mental state to compete and ultimately perform — and perform in those critical moments.”
Although Sarkisian used coach speak to explain something a little more complicated than that, he’s not wrong. Texas knows if they are able to prepare and then perform at their absolute best, they will have a chance to win this game. (It would certainly help if the version of Ohio State that shows up at AT&T Stadium looked more like the one that played at Michigan, rather than the one that beat Tennessee and Oregon.)
Texas and Ohio State meet in Arlington to decide who gets the chance to play for the national title.
But there are legitimate questions facing these Longhorns, and the answers will determine whether they advance to the College Football Playoff National Championship Game. Is the defense real or did the last two games show that it is closer to a mirage? Can Texas really finish the game strong?
The Longhorns outplayed Georgia for much of the first half of the SEC championship game, but the drives stalled in the red zone. Still, Texas led at halftime before the Dawgs came back and eventually won in overtime behind a backup quarterback Gunner Stockton.
Against Clemson, Texas allowed 24 points and 412 yards of offense; Tigers quarterback Cade Klubnik threw for 336 yards and three touchdowns in the losing effort.
Against Arizona State, Texas allowed 31 points (24 in regulation, seven more in overtime) and a whopping 510 yards of offense. Cam Tax House and co. they rushed for 214 yards while the Longhorns totaled just 53 yards as a team and struggled to sustain drives. Through four quarters, Arizona State possessed the ball for nearly 38 minutes and ran a total of 94 plays; The Texas defense couldn’t get off the field. And, of course, Texas was one quarter short of losing to the Sun Devils in a huge upset.
The Longhorns’ defense has been among the nation’s best in every major category all season. The secondary in particular is considered elite. But if Texas’ defense looks more like it did the past two games than it did the entire regular season, it will struggle to contain Ohio State’s rushing attack, which boasts two of the top receivers in the country in Jeremiah Smith and Emeka Egbuka.
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“I just hope we’re good enough to guard them,” Sarkisian said. “These guys are really good players. We will find out.”
We will soon find out who won the chess match between elite playcaller Sarkisian and Jim Knowlesthe architect of the Buckeye defense that tallied eight (!) sacks of the Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel in the quarterfinals. Ohio State routinely pressured Gabriel despite blitzing relatively infrequently.
And now it is Quinn Ewers‘ to turn against this defense, an unenviable task. But he will have the right move Cameron Williams returned to the lineup from an injury in the first-round game against Clemson, which should help both in pass protection and Texas’ ability to run the ball against what Sarkisian said was a “belligerent” Buckeye front.
Still, it’s clear that a lot will need to happen for Texas to win this game against the hottest team in the playoffs. Maybe Sarkisian doesn’t like to admit the reality of life as an outsider, but the rest of us can and will.
“In this format, it’s not always about who was the best team over 12 games – it’s about who’s playing the best football at this time of year,” Sarkisian said in his final pregame press conference. “I think we could all agree on which coach (Ryan) Dan did, their team, them coming out of that Michigan game and what they’ve been able to do since the playoffs started has been tremendous.
“I could probably poll everyone in this room and you’d probably all agree that they’re the favorites to win, and that’s fine. That’s football. It’s a sport. That’s why we have to do what we do. I won’t back down from what I said. Reality is reality. Now we have to go perform.”
