Lettermen Live: Ohio State Football Podcast

Buckeyes dominate Oregon in Rose Bowl beatdown, advance to CFP semifinal

Buckeyes dominate Oregon in Rose Bowl beatdown, advance to CFP semifinal | Ohio State football #OhioStateFootball #OhioState #CFBNews Subscribe for more Ohio State Football coverage: https://www.youtube.com/c/Lettermenrow?sub_confirmation=1 Ohio State Buckeyes videos from Columbus, Ohio from the staff of Lettermen Row.

Duration:: 13m
Broadcast on:: 02 Jan 2025
Audio Format:: other

The rematch delivered in every way for Ohio State. That's Tim at the 41 year that Obson's Holberg, we are on the field. Speaker field, speaker field at the Rose Bowl. In the aftermath of Ohio State 41, Oregon 21. If you can see the screen behind us, that means Ohio State is the Rose Bowl champion of 2025. Happy New Year from Letterman Row and Happy New Year to the Ohio State Buckeyes, the Rose Bowl champions who are moving on to play Texas in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl next week. Yes, Tim. Belt to, you know what, butt woofing. Whatever you want to call it, this was not close. Ohio State came out, scored in the first minute, literally. Jeremiah Smith crossed the ball and 14 minutes left in this game. Or with 14 minutes left in the first quarter. Yes. The Buckeyes got to stop, scored, got to stop. I think they punted, then scored again. It was 21-nothing, it was 34-nothing, 34-8 at the half. This game was never in doubt. The Buckeyes dominated. What did you think? I just thought the way the defense came out. Obviously Oregon scored on his first possession of the second half. You're going, "Uh-oh, these guys are intent on making it a game." Yeah. Then Ohio State comes back out, if I remember correctly, scores, but then the defense stops. That was a huge stop against Oregon in their second possession to just kind of reclaim a grip on this game. Obviously Oregon scored a couple of times, but the bottom line was, Ohio State put 34 on the board in the first half. And one touchdown in the second half and made it stand. And I want to tell you something. It's been somebody covering his team, is everybody knows if they follow us since 1984, 41 seasons. Maybe slightly the Wisconsin game in 2014 when they won 59-nothing, when they had to win and be impressive. With their backup quarterback Cardell Jones, just to get into the college football playoff, the very first college football playoff rivals this. But Wisconsin was not the number one team in the country. This was a really good Oregon team, undefeated. And the main thing Ohio State did was when the bell sounded, it walked right to the middle of the ring and hit him with uppercuts. And Jeremiah Smith, yes. Jeremiah Smith, any pastor in the Jeremiah Smith should be considered an uppercut. He breaks Chris Carter's freshman Rose Bowl receiving record. I think it was 186 is what 187 what Jeremiah ended up with. I think Chris had 175 way back in 2015 Rose Bowl, excuse me, 1985 Rose Bowl, 1984 season. The very first Rose Bowl ever covered the first season I covered Ohio State. I go, hey, everyone go to the Rose Bowl every year, this is pretty cool. Of course, he didn't go back for another 12. But the bottom line is he just beat a legend. And he's beaten a legend several times on records so far this season. And he still has probably two games to go. But Jeremiah Smith, oh my goodness. What a freshman quote. You said he just beat a legend. Everyone coming into this game thought Dan Lanning was a legend. Once the guy, the next up in college football was the guy who maybe if he wins a title could take the mantle. You know, from Kirby, because he's a Kirby disciple, from Saban, because Saban's got all these titles. Lanning's got the number one team in the country. They're undefeated. They've already got a win over Ohio State. Ryan Day took that back. And I don't want to make this too big of a deal, but this is a massive deal. It's a massive, it was a massive victory. Two massive victories in a row. It's not even the fact that this was a comprehensive butt kicking over the number one undefeated team in the country. It's the fact that it was against the Big Ten team who thought that it had snatched the Big Ten title from you. And you know, the title of the best team in the Big Ten. Yeah. And you came out to Pasadena in a stadium that was 60% Oregon fans. Maybe even 65. It was heavy Oregon crowd. A lot of a high state fans here, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, yeah, there were, there were, but these Oregon fans had longer to prepare, longer to travel. Sure, longer to dream. And Ohio State absolutely left zero doubt in this game. From the opening play, when Will Howard played action and found a couch route, G Scott down the sideline right here for a 37 yard catch, I think. And then Jeremiah Smith on the very next, you know, they ran the ball. No, I think we'll pass. Sorry. Do you play about play? Just tip the highlights. Jeremiah Smith 45 yard catch and run. Yeah. Was incredible. The Jeremiah Smith play, he was wide open. WTFO, if you can put those acronyms together. Wide. Wide to fully open. Absolutely. Here's the bottom line. He liked his first touchdown the best because he kind of juked the stuff. Oh, yeah. He did some magic. But I'm here to tell you, I guarantee Will how I'd like that throw to him. Of course he did. That throw to him back up was when Will gets drafted and I don't know where he'll get drafted. It doesn't matter right now. That's the throw they'll show because it was so good. This Ohio State team had answers for Oregon's defense at every single turn. When Oregon thought they were going to pass Ohio State run 66 yards for a touchdown. When Oregon thinks they're going to run, they hit him over the top with a really long touchdown pass to Jeremiah Smith. Yeah. In the second half, he needed a long drive. Ohio State got a long drive towards the touchdown. Leaves no doubt. This was, I cannot say this enough. You emphasize? I can't emphasize enough. This was as comprehensive as you ever see on everyone's team in the country get beat. I agree. We were talking about that at halftime in the press box. Name me. Name me. I couldn't think of one. There could be a lot of reasons for that, but I couldn't think of one. But it was just so thorough. For the first 15 plus, 15 plus 14 is 29. For the first 29 minutes of this game, it was about as thorough about kicking as you're ever going to see against anybody. Like I said, it was like the Ohio State Oregon game. It turned into the Ohio State Purdue game right in front of our eyes. Ohio State could almost do anything it wanted. Yeah, it took a couple of lumps along the way. But the Travion Henderson run, just, you know, like he talked about when all of a sudden cut the corner and saw green grass. It was, it was a blessing like he said, you know, from on high, you know, he's religious. He's a religious stance. I mean, he thanks God and Jesus for everything he does. But the bottom line was, you know, holy moly. Yeah. Well, what a run. And, and then like a, like a joke with Will Iward, I said, you dropped a few dimes again tonight. Because he was dropping dives, man, on, on Oregon's defense. But the other side of it is Denzel Burke. Yeah, I was going to get through the defense. Davis and Ignose, no penalties against Davis and Ignose. Makes a great paint breakup down here on the far left corner of when Dylan Gabriel first tried to take it deep one time. And I think he broke it up with his helmet. Yeah, which means you're pretty close, but you're not grabbing a guy. So he was pretty fired up about that. But just defensive, I told, told Simon that I thought that his play on the very first play of the game. When he came out of nowhere and caught that guy for like one or two yard loss out in the right flat after a toss. That kind of set the tone. Cody Simon, with what was to come for the next hour or so. Yeah, I think a lot of it. We're not gushing. You can go back and watch it and see what we're talking about. Again, this was comprehensive. There's no gushing involved. This was a bunching. Yes. Cody Simon, I think, had a couple sacks. Jack Sawyer, I think, had three sacks. Jack Sawyer had, had, had his game, game of games thus far. I think it was the best game of Jack Sawyer's career. That's what it just said. Yeah, three, three past three cups. A couple sacks. Like he was incredible. JT's were a ball, ball, ball was good. I thought Ty Hamilton and Tyler Williams played their best game, maybe ever. Just man handling the guards from Oregon. Jake Curry. There were times where Oregon didn't look competitive up front. Yeah. And that is a testament to what Ohio State's defensive front game. Jim Knowles gave a lot of credit to that defensive front. We thought he lost enough. The secondary played really well. Jordan Hancock, Lincoln Ransom both said. It's the exact same thing they did in the first game. They just executed better. I don't believe that. They've done a lot of different things. They did, though. No, there were some things changed, but they did execute at a higher level. Right. And they defended the default better. They didn't allow Oregon to have time to throw. How about this? The first default thrown on Denzel Berg. He had more of a chance of catching it than the receiver. Yeah, he ran out for it. Exactly. Denzel was elevated tonight in Mario this afternoon and tonight, as we all know. It starts in the sunshine and ends in the moonshine. Yeah. Or an expression. Yeah. But, uh, with a little money, yeah, he elevated himself tonight in a great way. And then Davis Eggmanosa, like I said, he was pretty steady all night long. Yeah, they give some of the underneath stuff and some of those little stuff to keep a couple of drives going. And you're always going to do that because, like, I keep repeating. Dylan Gabriel was a Heisman finalist. Dylan Gabriel was the all big 10 quarterback. Now, this offense was going to score probably only a couple of times. But I'm telling you, my favorite play of the night was the second touchdown pass to Jeremiah Smith. And it wasn't the pass. It was Donovan Jackson going against Jordan Burch. The feared big Jordan Burch, like it was a heavyweight boxing match. It was, I even, I kind of missed most of the play because I just got fixated on that. Because, man, if you're winning those battles, you're probably winning a football game. Yeah, Jordan Burch did get Josh Ryder on one sack in the first quarter. Josh said he didn't realize Jordan's power because he had never faced him before. Yeah. After that, they were perfect against him. They didn't allow another sack. It was incredible, the way that they handled the tailoring on Glauley and Jordan Burch. If they can do that, they can handle Texas, and they can handle any of the teams left in this tournament. Ohio State two wins away winning the National Championship. It's basically, thank you for playing the first quarter next because they were up 21-1 Tennessee. Yeah. They were up 17-0 in Oregon. It wasn't even close. This has been an exercise, though, in play this game and then think about the next one after you're done. Tennessee, they destroyed the third best team in the Southeastern Conference. Although, I'm sure Southeast Conference officials are shuffling that order. They destroyed the Big Ten champion, undefeated, the number one team in the country. If there was a poll tomorrow instead of just the bracket, Ohio State would be number one. Yeah. I mean, there's no doubt about it. You still got Georgia and Notre Dame to play, and God bless everybody in New Orleans because of what happened down there. They caused that game to be postponed until Thursday. But the bottom line is, this is the best team in the country now we're covering, and they've done a great job of taking it one game at a time since the game. And next is Texas. Next is a guy who came here for like four months, three months, and left to go back to the Promised Land of Texas, Queen Ears. There's no hard feelings here, I'm sure. But the bottom line is, you know, you're taking on Steve Sarkeesian and his vaunted offensive mind, and Texas has a really good defense. But we saw what Arizona State did today coming back on Texas, forcing it into overtime, crazy game. You know, it just, I don't know if it just gets tougher from here from the standpoint of keep on keeping up. This is a tournament. It's on to Dallas. First, we had to see the sunset though. The sunset on the Oregon Ducks season. How did it strike it? The first time you've ever seen it. I've added the Rose Bowl to my bucket list, because I got to get back. Oh. It is the greatest. I'll touch you, just check it off. It is the greatest venue in all of college football. I will never take it off my bucket list. I will cherish. Every time I come out here, the first was incredible. It was stress-free because Ohio State was winning, and I didn't have to worry about writing a story that was, you know, going to stress me out trying to type in the last minutes down on the field for the final five minutes. These wonderful Ohio State fans who travel all this way. The one that's doing this with you. It's been awesome. Watching the sunset. You know, just saying Gabriel's in the background, lighting up like that. Picture perfect night, almost perfect evening for Ohio State, and now it's on to Dallas, Tim May, and I will be in Dallas, Ohio State in Texas. It's going to be awesome. That's the college one point I'll send my final. We have to get through the quarters first. We're going to get back to Columbus. As you see back there. One quick point. I picked Jeremiah Smith off my full pitch for him to catch seven or more passes. He caught seven or more passes, and just missed getting that third touchdown catch, which I picked him to do, so I may have to recycle that one again. Yeah, maybe. I mean, dude, they've got it going on on the best receiver in the country. I think I would have to declare him now just based on not his potential, but what he has done. It's crazy. You see it back there, folks. The Ohio State Roseport champions. They won the quarter final. The college will play off over the Oregon Ducks. Tim May, the 41 year head. I'm just going to go over. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Thanks for allowing us to come out here. We only can do this because of you, the listener, the viewer. Thank you for everything. Thank you for your support. We'll see you guys back in Columbus, the greatest city on Earth. We'll see you guys in the Ohio State versus Texas, and the college will play off.