Ohio St. survives; Sooners repeat
It wasn’t pretty. Ohio State’s edge entering the fourth quarter in the Buckeyes’ first five games: 21 points (Nebraska), 18 points (Penn State), 33 points (Rutgers), 21 points (Indiana) and 31 points (Michigan State).
Northwestern made them sweat. The Wildcats led 7-3 after one quarter. It was 10-6 at halftime.
The Buckeyes led 13-10 after three quarters, but it felt like a flimsy advantage — Northwestern was one big play from moving ahead, sitting on the lead and pulling off a shocking upset in the Big Ten championship game.
Behind an inspired performance from running back Trey Sermon, OSU eventually wore down Northwestern’s top-ranked defense and won 22-10 to cap an abbreviated but unbeaten regular season and secure a spot in the College Football Playoff.
Sermon ran for 331 yards on 29 carries, setting the program’s single-game record — besting former Heisman Trophy winner Eddie George’s 314 in 1995 — to overcome the worst game of junior quarterback Justin Fields’ nearly flawless college career. Fields completed 12 of his 27 attempts for 114 yards and two interceptions.
A transfer from Oklahoma, Sermon had run for 344 yards in the Buckeyes’ first five games but broke out in a 52-12 win against Michigan State on Dec. 5, rushing for 112 yards and a touchdown on 10 carries.
The relatively close margin of victory didn’t keep OSU out of the playoff. Hanging tight with the Buckeyes gave the Wildcats a very good case for one of the New Year’s Six bowls, where they will play Auburn in the Citrus Bowl. Northwestern hasn’t played in one of the major bowls since reaching the Rose Bowl in 1996.
Here are the winners and losers from the final week of the regular season, including Friday’s games:
Winners
Alabama: Florida scored a bunch of points, as expected. Florida couldn’t stop Alabama, also as expected. The Crimson Tide’s 52-46 win locked down the No. 1 seed in the playoff but raises a few questions about the defense, which had bottled up a run of offensively unimposing SEC opponents but struggled against Kyle Trask and the Gators. What does that say about Alabama’s matchup against one of the nation’s best teams in the semifinals or championship game? It might not change much. The story on Alabama all season has been one of near-perfection on offense and enough on defense to win another national title. Besides, Florida would drop 40 or more points on just about anybody.
Clemson: Beating Notre Dame 34-10 for the ACC championship locked Clemson into the playoff as the No. 2 seed, and answered any lingering questions coming out of the Tigers’ overtime loss to the Fighting Irish in November. Trevor Lawrence made a major Heisman Trophy statement with 412 yards of total offense and three touchdowns, Travis Etienne cracked the 100-yard mark for the third time this season and the Tigers’ defense controlled the line of scrimmage and made six sacks.
Cincinnati: The Bearcats hit a field goal as time expired and beat Tulsa 2724 to take the American championship and grab the automatic bid to a New Year’s Six bowl given to the best team in the Group of Five. Always a long shot, any sense of disappointment over being sidelined in the chase for the national championship is tempered by the upcoming trip to a major bowl and the program’s continued excellence under coach Luke Fickell, who could’ve leaped to a Power Five job this past offseason but stuck around, aware of how good this 2020 team could be. The Bearcats are 31-5 in the past three seasons.
Oklahoma: The Sooners took a 17-0 lead in the first half, led 24-7 at halftime and parried Iowa State’s charge to beat the Cyclones 27-21 and win the program’s sixth consecutive Big 12 championship. That Iowa State would storm back was inevitable: The Cyclones had topped OU earlier this season, had won six in a row coming into Saturday and were playing for the school’s first conference title in more than a century. ISU drew within a field goal at 24-21 with five minutes left before OU added a field goal and made a late defensive stop. The Sooners are now 11-1 in Big 12 championship games.
Losers
Notre Dame: Before Saturday, logic went that Notre Dame would stick in the top four even with a loss. The Irish enter the postseason at 10-1 with nine wins against Power Five teams, four with winning records, and can tout very solid wins against Clemson and North Carolina. That proved to be enough to enter make the national semifinal as the No. 4 seed to face Alabama. In a larger sense, the ugly loss rekindles concerns over how Notre Dame fares under Brian Kelly in the do-or-die sort of games that can decide the national championship.
Texas A&M: A&M took care of business and dominated Tennessee, running 79 plays to the Volunteers’ 44 and controlling possession for nearly 45 minutes to win 34-13 and end the regular season at 8-1. It wasn’t enough to make the playoff. The Aggies will face North Carolina in the Orange Bowl.
Southern California: After entering the Pac-12 championship as the league’s lone unbeaten, Friday’s 31-24 loss to Oregon eliminated the Trojans from New Year’s Six contention and reignitef the debate over coach Clay Helton’s job security. There’s no sugarcoating the disappointment: USC was playing the second-place team from the North division in the two-loss Ducks, and with a win could’ve earned a third January bowl in Helton’s six full seasons. Instead, the Trojans committed three turnovers, racked up nearly 100 penalty yards and averaged just 4.5 yards per play.
Coastal Carolina: Friday’s cancellation of the Sun Belt championship game also hurts Louisiana-lafayette, which had a chance to avenge a 30-27 loss to Coastal Carolina earlier this season and build a case for the New Year’s Six with a Cincinnati loss to Tulsa in the American title game. But the inability to play the game is more harmful to the Chanticleers, who fell to the FBC Mortgage Cure Bowl, where they will face Liberty.