Ohio State went into the College Football Playoff semifinal against Clemson with the mindset it needed to play its best game of the season to beat the Tigers, and it’s taking that same mindset into the national championship game against Alabama.
There’s no question Ohio State played its best game of the year in the Sugar Bowl, putting up 49 points with a season-high 639 yards while holding Clemson to a season-low 28 points on 444 yards to earn a three-touchdown win over the Tigers. But as the Buckeyes now prepare to play Alabama, which is 12-0 this season and the No. 1 seed in the CFP, it’s uncertain whether even playing as well as they did in the Sugar Bowl will be enough for them to win the national championship.
So with one more week to practice and prepare before they play the Crimson Tide next Monday night in Miami, the Buckeyes have their sights set on getting even better.
“We said it going into the last game, we're going to have to play our best game. Well, we're going to have to even play better than we did last week to beat Alabama,” Ryan Day said Monday.
Ohio State middle linebacker Tuf Borland agrees with his coach’s assessment.
“We're going to have to play our best game this week,” Borland said. “We're going to have to find another level, for sure.”
There’s definitely reason for Borland and the rest of his teammates on his side of the ball to think that way, as Alabama’s offense has been a tour de force this season. The Crimson Tide lead all Power 5 offenses in yards per play (7.84) and points per game (48.2). Wide receiver DeVonta Smith is probably going to win the Heisman Trophy on Tuesday night, quarterback Mac Jones is also a Heisman finalist, running back Najee Harris finished fifth in Heisman voting and its offensive line won the Joe Moore Award. Alabama might even get its other superstar wide receiver Jaylen Waddle back from what was originally believed to be a season-ending ankle injury.
“Unbelievable team, unbelievable players. They've got talent all over the place. Big, physical offensive line, playmakers on the perimeter,” Borland said when asked Monday for his impressions on Alabama’s offense. “We talk about keeping them inside of us and keeping them in front of us, and that's certainly something we're going to have to do this week.”
On the other side of the ball, Alabama’s defense has taken its lumps – it allowed 48 points against Ole Miss and 46 points against Florida – yet it still ranks 13th nationally in points allowed per game (19.0) and tied for 17th nationally in yards allowed per play (5.0), which means the Crimson Tide certainly could provide more resistance for Ohio State’s offense than Clemson did.
“They're a physical group. They're big and strong,” said Ohio State running back Trey Sermon. “They just fly to the ball and they make plays.”
All of that said, the Buckeyes have reason to believe they can win after playing as well as they did against Clemson. They’ve already proved that they can elevate their game on both sides of the ball to beat one of college football’s best teams, and they can draw from that as they prepare for what could be an even tougher challenge.
“The good news is I think we have a little confidence going into the game that we've shown what we can do, and now we've got to go do it again,” Day said.
There’s a fine line between confidence that leads to peak performance and overconfidence that could make the Buckeyes think they’re better than they are, so they have to guard against that after finally beating Clemson, the team who had been in their crosshairs all year long after sling to the Tigers in the 2019 College Football Playoff semifinals. They have to practice just as hard this week as they did leading up to the Sugar Bowl if they want to achieve the same results in the title game.
Day doesn’t expect that to be a problem, though, because the team’s goals have always been bigger than just beating Clemson and just winning one playoff game.
“The goal was never just to beat Clemson. The goal was to win the national championship,” Day said. “So while it was an emotional win, that wasn't the goal. The goal was to win this one. And so I'd be disappointed if we didn't play well in this game. This is everything on the line, everything we wanted, and so now all the focus goes on to Alabama. We've just got to prepare.
“The most prepared team is going to win the game, and we have to prepare like we did the week before.”
“We're going to have to even play better than we did last week to beat Alabama.””– Ryan Day
While Nick Saban and Alabama aren’t likely to give the Buckeyes the same kind of bulletin-board material that Dabo Swinney and Clemson did, it also doesn’t hurt that Ohio State is once again an underdog entering this game, giving the Buckeyes more reason to understand they need to play even better and extra motivation to prove their doubters wrong.
“We have a pretty big chip on our shoulder,” Sermon said. “We feel like we're one of the best teams in the country. We just try to go prove that every time we step on the field. We all believe in each other. So yes, we have that chip and we play with it.”
