Ohio State will play Notre Dame for the national title after beating Texas 28-14 in the Cotton Bowl on Friday night.
The Buckeyes scored 14 straight points in the fourth quarter to seal the game after Texas had tied it in the third quarter. Here are the five plays that defined the game as Ohio State will try to win its first title in a decade.
Texas was just hanging on for much of the first half against Ohio State. The Longhorns opened the game with the ball and turned it over on downs in Ohio State territory. The Buckeyes responded with a 10-play drive that ended with a TD.
You aren’t alone if you felt like the game could become a blowout early. Instead, it was a slog. The teams combined to punt on eight consecutive drives in the first half before Texas finally got on the board with 29 seconds to go before halftime.
The score came when Jaydon Blue raced out of the backfield and caught a perfect pass from Quinn Ewers for the TD. The 18-yard score tied the game at 7-7 and gave Texas fans a fleeting hope that the game would be tied at halftime after the Longhorns converted all four of their third-down attempts on the drive.
Alas, it was not tied at halftime. Ohio State scored on its first play of the next drive after Texas decided to put most of its defenders deeper down the field to prevent against a big play.
That did not work. Ohio State called a screen for Henderson, who waited for his blockers to engage with the first line of Texas’ defense. As they did, Henderson broke through the wall and outraced everyone else to the end zone for a 14-7 halftime lead.
The play turned out to be a symbol for the game. Texas did its best to hang around. But Ohio State simply had more firepower.
The Buckeyes got the ball to start the second half and looked primed to take a two-score lead early in the third quarter. Instead, Texas’ defense got a critical stop.
Ohio State freshman wide receiver Jeremiah Smith had just one catch for three yards during the game as the Texas defense did a phenomenal job of keeping Smith from breaking the game open. As Ohio State moved down the field, Howard tried to force a pass to Smith. But Gbenda saw that Howard had locked in on Smith from the snap and dropped deep enough to pick off the pass before it got close to the receiver.
Texas wasn’t able to capitalize on Gbenda’s interception, though the Longhorns did get the game tied at 14-14 late in the third quarter on another TD catch by Blue.
After the teams traded punts, Ohio State took over on its own 12-yard line just seconds into the fourth quarter. The Buckeyes promptly went on a 13-play, 88-yard scoring drive that included a clutch fourth-down run by Howard.
OSU elected to go for it on fourth-and-2 at the Texas 34-yard line with 9:50 to go. With every receiver split out to the right, Ohio State pulled the left guard and ran a play for Howard up the middle. He easily got the first down and probably should have scored if he didn’t stumble and fall to the turf.
Four plays later, Judkins was in the end zone for a second time as Ohio State took the lead for good.
Texas responded to Ohio State’s score with a nice drive of their own. A 27-yard pass to Matthew Golden — who had missed much of the game with an ankle injury — got Texas to the OSU 13-yard line, and a pass interference penalty three plays later gave Texas a first down two yards away from the end zone.
Another pass interference call moved the ball a yard closer to the end zone with four minutes to go. And that’s when things went haywire for the Longhorns. Jerrick Gibson got stopped on a first-down run up the middle. On second down, Texas tried to spread Ohio State’s defense out laterally with a pitch to Quintrevion Wisner toward the left sideline.
That was a disaster. Wisner lost seven yards. On third down, Ewers’ pass was tipped and fell incomplete.
At that point, a field goal did Texas very little good. A TD was still going to be necessary. So the Longhorns made the right decision to go for it, but Ewers couldn’t release the ball before he was hit by Jack Sawyer. Ewers lost the ball and Sawyer picked it up to officially run 83 yards for a TD and cap off Ohio State’s win.
Texas’ chances of a last-ditch comeback disappeared less than 30 seconds after Sawyer made it to the end zone when Caleb Downs picked off Ewers over the middle with 1:44 to go.
