Texas was in the building when Ohio State punched its CFP title game ticket.
The Longhorns will be back on the opposite sideline Saturday when the Buckeyes unveil their newest championship banner. In a plot twist you probably don't remember happening, this weekend's game was supposed to be played in Austin.
A return trip to Columbus was originally scheduled for next season, in what would serve as the meaty part of a Ball and Kent State sandwich on Ohio State's non-conference schedule - but the locations were swapped for some administrative reason back in January 2020 and ahh right, that's why no one remembers this happening.
So in an alternate universe, the Buckeyes are opening their title defense back in Texas against a team whose 2024 season and championship aspirations were ended by...that's right. Saturday is already pretty spicy, but this game could have been a ghost pepper.
Another thing you might not remember - Texas is a state where if you convince yourself the 2023 Cotton Bowl never actually happened (did it, though?) Ohio State is undefeated, all-time. Instead, we're treated to a home opener against the nation's preseason number one team. It was going to be spicy no matter what.
Every college football season drips with intrigue, and 2025 is no different. Imagine Texas finally advancing beyond the CFP semifinals where its past two seasons have ended in losses. Ugh, poor Texas. When your players have Lamborghini NIL deals, anything short of a national title is a crisis.
our offseason of doing psychological snow angels in the memory of Ohio State's four-game heater has now concluded.
A Texas breakthrough would also commemorate the 20-year anniversary of its most visit to Columbus, when the Longhorns left Ohio Stadium with a win (don't click on that) en route to the then-BCS championship. Oh, that's elegant.
Parallel construction is the backbone of all title aspirations. Ohio State just secured another banner while celebrating the 10-year anniversary of its previous one - reader, you know this about parallel construction; the fans love it whether it happens or crashes spectacularly.
You might be old enough to remember Notre Dame's soaring expectations for renewed glory back in 1999 because the Fighting Irish had won (then, mythical) titles in 1966, 1977 and 1988. Oh baby, a 1999 ND title felt like destiny to Yankees fans who love Duke basketball and the Dallas Cowboys.
Anyway, Bob Davie's team finished with a 5-7 record, failing to qualify for a bowl game. It was very funny. Schadenfreude, the dopamine of every collapsed championship aspiration.
If Texas is able to complete a Third Time's the Charm run in a third-consecutive CFP, the Longhorns will open their title defense in 2026 at home against...you guessed it, Texas State. But the game after that is against the Buckeyes - and wouldn't you know it, that one is going to be another 20-year anniversary.
In the meantime, our offseason of doing psychological snow angels in the memory of Ohio State's four-game heater has now concluded. If you're thinking about betting against highlights from that run - the 2025 Cotton Bowl in particular - being shown on the Ohio Stadium mediumtron at some point on Saturday, on behalf of your financial planner: Don't do that.
Refugees from last year's Longhorns roster will get to relive their most recent outing while facing the same program again. Jack Sawyer is going to sack Quinn Ewers and 85% of the building will cheer. Neither of those guys are even going to be there.
Jack is going to pick up the ball and run it back. The crowd will roar its approval, and for a moment it's going to feel like the 2025 Cotton Bowl again. And despite temperatures in the mid-70s at kickoff, there's no way it will feel warmer in that late summer moment than it did back on January 10 when the best team in the country left Texas with another gaudy trophy in its possession.
Best in Texas leave Texas!!! #GoBucks
— Riley Pettijohn (@r_pettijohn) January 11, 2025
That's right, Riley Pettijohn. Welcome back, college football. Let's get Situational.
OPENER | LET'S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED
Texas Longhorns LB Colin Simmons attempts to get past Donovan Jackson during the 2025 Cotton Bowl. Simmons finished the game with four tackles and no sacks. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images
This was a sledgehammer game in January. Saturday will be more of the same. Well, kind of.
Last-game-first-game rematch tangos are extremely rare in college football, so please pardon the condescending teensplaining here: Don't expect this to look like a 5th-8th quarter sequel of the Cotton Bowl from either team. And yes, of course Brand New Quarterbacks are the big reason.
Two five-stars will be making their first legitimate starts against defenses with talent and ability they've only ever faced in their own practice facilities while wearing no-contact jerseys. If you're a lurking UT fan, yes - Arch Manning did tear up Mississippi State last season, but so did Toledo - so let's not pretend he's got big game callouses. Manning entered the Cotton Bowl for exactly one play, which nearly got him killed.
That's still one more snap than Julian Sayin got in Arlington, and the New QB dynamic is the best illustration of how coaches approach the first game of the season. Confidence doesn't exist for either guy throwing the passes yet, which coming off a game that featured current quarterbacks for the Miami Dolphins and Pittsburgh Steelers - will show up with what each guy will be permitted to do.
Ryan Day entered 2024 with 2020-level confidence in his offense and 2019 for his defense; just elite levels of proven players which is where declarations like natty or bust are born. Even with copious seniority on that roster, defensive strategy changed drastically following the Oregon loss. He decided Ohio State should trust its trusted guys even more.
Twenty-six players who played in THE COTTON BOWL nine months ago are NOW currently on NFL rosters.
Day showed very little confidence in his offense against Michigan while choosing to ride a probably-concussed Will Howard instead of subbing in Cal's current backup, which, hey that's a pickle. Confidence came roaring back three weeks later against Tennessee. You could see it ebb and flow, even during that four-game heater.
On Saturday he'll have a quarterback he has no reason to trust yet, especially in that environment against this defense - a unit Steve Sarkisian likely trusts more than anything else on his roster. Sark will be unable to lend his new QB any sort of advance reliable insight into what he's going to see because, hell, we don't even know what Ohio State's defense is going to look like under Matt Patricia. We only know it's seasoned and full of monsters.
The similarities we can count on should serve as the security blankets for both play callers, namely dump-offs and checkdowns. The wheel was open all night for both teams in Arlington, with every Texas point coming off two of them at Sonny Styles' expense.
Ohio State secured some very fortunate points to close the 1st half via a delayed RB release from TreVeyon Henderson, which is basically wheel route's stocky cousin twice-removed. But for the majority of the evening, both offensive line interiors were getting smoked.
With a notable exception from the winning team, arguably the MVP of the postseason run:
Donovan Jackson vs Texas in 38 pass pro snaps at LT:
— Ryan Fowler (@_RyanFowler_) January 11, 2025
0 pressures
0 hurries
0 QB hits
0 sacks allowed
Sensational outing for a rock solid Day 1 pick in a few months.
It's weird, but Donovan Jackson is now the Minnesota Vikings' starting LG and his former unit might be better than it was last year? Might is doing some heavy lifting for a line which lost its best player in October and the Rimington Award winner in November - it's hard to grade OSU's 2024 line because by my count there were six different versions of it.
And that's emblematic of the confidence deficiency both coaches will have when Saturday finally arrives. Texas is basically breaking in a whole new OL to line up across from a defensive front whose entire first team is in the NFL now. Twenty-six players from this matchup nine months ago are currently on NFL rosters. A reminder, only 22 play at a time.
These teams are both ranked in the top three because there's high confidence in the coaching and the ability of these rosters to fill in for the departed - in time, like maybe by mid-October. Probably not on first Saturday in September.
Which is why pollster confidence shrinks the closer you stand to the sideline, and especially if you're wearing a headset. If Ohio State and Texas rematch sometime in the winter, they'll meet up carrying a much higher level of confidence that we'll see this weekend.
And that game will be another sledgehammer matchup. More of the same. Well, kind of.
INTERMISSION
The Solo
Last year in an attempt to exorcise the demons of Michigan claiming a national title* songs exclusively from 1997 were sacrificed in this space. This strategy worked marvelously, so this year's theme will be Songs From Any Year Except 1997 or 2023.
E-Flat Major songs are unfair. If you need some sort of football metaphor to understand just how unfair it is, here you are: Eb Major: Chase Young | Your Feelings: Wisconsin's OL.
Genre, pacing and lyrics don't matter. Eb Major gives our fragile hearts a melancholy rinse which forces us to reconcile with how we manage emotions at a stoplight, which is actually good because that tends to reduce nose-picking. This is just one reason why having a relationship with music is so important to your health.
You deserve Eb Major examples. How about Bohemian Rhapsody, Your Song, Fix You, Last Dance and Simple Man. Military-grade endorphins ticklers. Oh, you need one that doesn't have a two-word title? Please refer to several legendary bangers by John Phillip Sousa or this week's break via Crowded House.
Don't Dream it's Over contains an organ solo. Let's answer our two questions.
Is the musician in the video actually playing organ?
That's Mitchell Froom, who also produced the song and is still the go-to organ guy in contemporary music (Dylan, Sheryl Crow, Paul McCartney, Indigo Girls, Tracy Chapman, Marshall Crenshaw, name anyone famous, yup, Mitch is probably on the organ) VERDICT: Yes, conclusive.
does this organ solo slap?
Church music showing up mid-middle school slow dance banger in Eb Major is a level of emotional unfairness which should have come with a warning label. It doesn't even matter when you were in middle school. Crowded House got me in my formatives. Aerosmith's Angel. Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind. Britney Spears' Toxic. I said what I said. We're all crying in the club again. VERDICT: Slaps
The Bourbon
There is a bourbon for every situation. Sometimes the spirits and the events overlap, which means that where bourbon is concerned there can be more than one worthy choice.
Garrison Brothers. Good to see you again.
This rhetorical is mostly for the older readers - did any of you ever do that thing where you sync up Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon withThe Wizard of Oz? I never had the attention span or appetite for the proper drugs to properly consume the pairing, but I thought of it last month after my 863rd (approximate) off-label use of 2024 CFP highlights as a digital antidepressants.
That's when I abruptly discovered Jordan Hancock tapping Jack Sawyer's helmet as they both coasted into the endzone with the ball - this happened with 2:13 left in the Cotton Bowl. It felt like a familiar timestamp, so I checked and Hancock's tap lines up with the game clock after 3rd & Jeremiah locked up the national title game as LeBron James was high-fiving everyone within reach, at least on the broadcast (the play ended before that, but a running clock took it all the way down to the two-minute timeout).
That got me curious, so I checked - and you're not going to believe what was happening with 2:13 left in the Tennessee and Oregon playoff games: Absolutely nothing, since those games had been over for well over an hour. Anyway, that's how my brain works. Kids, this might be what happens when you don't do drugs.
The penultimate CFP Situational had to diagnose a bourbon for when the Texas Longhorns appeared on the opposite sideline. There they are, again. Let's not overthink this.
Garrison Brothers remains the pick nine months later. Texas produces a respectable amount of bourbons, including Texas-adjacent Longbranch which appeared here ahead of Day's first game coaching the Buckeyes (in an interim capacity).
The Garrison assessment is unchanged. Scoop one up and score:
Mash bill here runs 74/15/11 corn/wheat/malted barley which is bourbonese for Please Compare This to Weller and Maker's Mark. Pancakes and syrup on the nose, honey custard on the palate and a hotter burn on the finish than you'd expect from a wheated. Available in most liquor stores and online.
Sync it up your last August Saturday. We already know how it flows on your second January Friday.
CLOSER | RUN IT BACK
Carnell Tate tries to break free from Anthony Hill Jr. and Liona Lefau during the 2025 Cotton Bowl. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images
Tennessee (35.7ppg) and Texas (33.0ppg) represented two of the top four SEC scoring teams last season. Ohio State held them to 31 points combined, on the strength of a defense which was trusted to operate at full tilt immediately following the first Oregon game.
That's impressive on its face, but lost in that performance was a drought which Texas broke against the Buckeyes: UT had gone six consecutive games (!) without scoring a 3rd quarter touchdown. The Longhorns broke through with their second wheel route touchdown of the night.
If you stretch it out, Texas only scored four 3rd quarter touchdowns over its final 10 games, two of which came in their first meeting with Georgia when they were being shut out and trailing by four scores. Whether they were up big or desperately needed points, Texas rarely punched it in after halftime last season.
Ohio State didn't allow a 3rd quarter TD THROUGHOUT ITS 2024 regular season, WHILE Texas went seven weeks without scoring one. The Longhorns broke through against the Buckeyes in the COTTON BOWL.
If you're wondering how your team compared in halftime adjustments, there's no comparison - Ohio State was a reliable double-digit scorer in the 3rd quarter, doing so eight times and only being kept out of the end zone by Nebraska, Penn State and you know the third one.
The Buckeyes have scored one 3rd quarter touchdown against the Wolverines over the past four years combined. It's a dreadful outlier. The last time Ohio State forced Michigan to punt in the 4th quarter, that ball was fair-caught by Garrett Wilson, pre-pandemic. Which is to say Jim Knowles never forced a 4th quarter punt in The Game.
But the reason the Buckeyes won two of those games last season - a clunker and a dogfight, respectively - was the defense held serve, which is all you can ask it do in lieu of a dramatic scoop and score touchdown. Nebraska, Penn State and Michigan combined for three total points in the 3rd quarter against Ohio State, which allowed only nine 3rd quarter points through its first 12 games.
Add in the playoff and the Buckeyes allowed two 3rd quarter points per game, through 16 games. Championship-level defense, and with one stark November exception where the offense was programmed to fail. It's a good recipe for championship football.
The Buckeyes are going to need that right from the jump with a mostly-new defense led by a new coordinator. If they can operate as is their custom in the 3rd quarter, then that's a favorable indicator for what should happen on the first Saturday of the season.
Thanks for getting Situational today. Go Bucks. Beat Texas.
