PLAYOFF PAYOFF
Oregon, Ohio State go for title thanks to new system
DALLAS — Oregon and Ohio State didn’t look like they looked like they were history.
On Monday night, the No. 2 Ducks and No. 4 Buckeyes will face off in the first-ever College Football Playoff National Championship at AT&T Stadium, but three months ago, neither team having suffered humbling home losses.
Oregon (then No. 12) appeared to be just its latest incarnation of a fun, high-flying and flawed o ffe n s ive juggernaut, while Ohio State (then No. 15) was still adjusting to a redshirt freshman (J.T. Barrett) replacing a twotime Big Ten Player of the Year (Braxton Miller) at quarterback.
Winning out wouldn’t even guarantee either team would get into the inaugural playoff.
“Both our program and Ohio State have played with that early loss, and your back was against the wall, to get to this point, every play of every game, the entire rest of the season, it was to use those words, do or die,” said second-year Oregon coach Mark Helfrich.
In any previous year, Ore - gon (13-1) and Ohio State (13-1) claim the national championship, given that Alabama and Florida St a te f inished as the top two teams in both the AP and USA Today Coaches polls, undefeated, defending champion Seminoles and the Buckeyes’ upset of No. 1 Alabama set up the showdown of offensive superpowers — a combined average of more than 92 points per game — at would never have been seen the BCS era. Ohio State is looking for its rst national championship in 12 ears after losing back-to-back tle game appearances in 20078, with Urban Meyer hoping
join Nick Saban as the secnd head coach in history to win ational titles at two different hools. Even though Meyer had capred two national championhips at Florida, the third-year hio State coach said that after a ealth scare and one-year hiatus om the sport, he wasn’t confient he would ever be back in e big game again. “It’s everybody’s dream and oal, but it’s very complicated nd everything has to align perctly for this to happen,” Meyer id. The stars didn’t seem aligned r the Buckeyes so much as their ason seemed star-crossed, havg lost two Heisman Trophy ndidate quarterbacks to injury, ut third-stringer Cardale Jones as an improbable and incredle instant success, leading Ohio ate to a Big Ten championship nd a playoff semifinal win in his rst two career starts, with the am averaging 50.5 points. But 50 points may not be nough for the Buckeyes to beat arcus Mariota and Oregon’s prolif ic attack, which just put up a Rose Bowl-record 59 points against a team which hadn’t lost in more than two years.
Making their second title game appearance in the past five seasons, the Ducks, still searching for their f irst national championship, will have to do it shorthanded, with two of their top re ce ive rs re ce n t ly sidelined. Devon Allen injured his knee during the Rose Bowl and is not expected to p l ay, and Darren Carrington was suspended after failing a drug test. But freshman receiver Charles Nelson reminded that, “With Marcus on the field, anything’s possible.”
In three seasons, the Heis - man winner has made just about everything possible, accomplishing everything that anyone could ever conceive in one college career — except a national championship.
“To win, I wouldn’t know how I’d describe that feeling,” Mariota said. “To be the first team to win it from Oregon would be just an incredible deal. … I had visions, I had dreams of doing this stuff, but to actually be a part of it, it’s incredible and just an honor. This is once-in-a-lifetime stuff.”
Maybe for these players. For everyone else, it’s the beginning of a new era.