Andy & Ari On3 - My Favorite Game: Georgia vs Ohio State 2022, Ohio State vs Alabama 2014

Episode Date: June 21, 2024

Continuing our "My Favorite Game" series, we have an episode featuring Ohio State in both games. We take a look at Georgia's epic win ringing in the New Year and Ohio State setting the standard in the first ever CFP.(0:00-1:53) Intro (1:54-32:17) Jake Rowe joins to recap Georgia vs Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl(32:18-1:11:17) Spencer Holbrooks details Ohio State's incredible victory over Alabama in the 2015 Sugar Bowl(1:11:18-1:12:55) ConclusionWant to watch the show instead? Join us live, M-F, at 8 am et! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn2g2Wy8uiE9BhDPV4knT7AHost: Andy StaplesGuests: Jake Rowe, Spencer HolbrookProducer: River Bailey

welcome to annie staples on three thank you so much for joining us and as you know if you've been watching we're off this week but we're not done talking college football we left you with a couple incredible conversations a couple trips down memory lane. The My Favorite Games series, which we had so much fun doing, we're definitely going to do some more of these. So if we haven't gotten to your team yet, don't worry. We're getting there. We have this amazing network of team site writers.

We have a lot of people who would love to talk about their favorite games. So don't worry if we haven't gotten to your team yet. We're going to get there. Today, though, we got a treat for you. Jake Rowe from Dogs HQ is going to talk the Georgia-Ohio State Peach Bowl after the 2022 season. That's Georgia en route to a national title. C.J. Stroud and Ohio State with a ton to prove

after they've lost to Michigan and a game for the ages. Then after that, don't get too upset, Ohio State fans, because you're about to smile. Spencer Holbrook of Letterman Row joins us to talk about the Sugar Bowl between Alabama and Ohio State after the 2014 season. That's right, the first season of the college football playoff, the second ever semifinal played in the college football playoff, the second ever semifinal played in the college football playoff. So much fun remembering these games, getting to watch them again. It's incredible. So let us now go to New Year's Eve, 2022. And a fraction of this game happens in 2023. Georgia fans, you know what I mean by that.

Let's talk to Jake Rowe about Ohio State and Georgia in the Peach Bowl following the 2022 season. Jake Rowe from Dogs HQ talking. Georgia and Ohio State in the Peach Bowl. Jake, why did you pick this one as your favorite? Because there've been some big games. I figured it'd be this one or the national title game against Alabama, but why this one and not that one? Oh man, the national title game against Alabama in terms of games I've covered is probably, I mean, it's probably fringe top five. This one, the number one thing is CJ Stroud. This guy, man, it's one of those things that was funny.

You know, everybody's got this kind of in Georgia circles and in teams that want to be critical of Ohio state, they've got this whole, well, Ohio state quarterbacks flop in the NFL, man. I felt as good about CJ Stroud playing in pro ball as I have a quarterback in a long time based on that game because I knew how good that Georgia defense was I knew how good he was in that game and and man he just he was the best player in that game and Georgia just kind of showed that you can have the best quarterback and and this wasn't the fault in 2018 2019 2020 if 2020. If you had the best quarterback, everybody thought, well,

if you got the better quarterback, you're going to win. That's your game. He was the best quarterback. Georgia had the better roster, and it kind of outlasted him. Got a break or two. Ohio State got some breaks in that game, too. I'm not saying that that didn't happen, but C.J. Stroud was the number one thing. Just the game flow, just kind of how it went.

It just seemed so improbable for most of that that Georgia was going to win that game. Well, and that's the thing. Georgia was playing from behind for quite a bit of it, and they had to have two comebacks really to make this work. Ohio State jumps all over them 21-7, and then Georgia comes comes back then Ohio State jumps on them again and they're up again and and up another two touchdown lead they're up 38-24 at one point and Georgia comes back which you know I I like you said knowing what Georgia was was dealing with knowing what Georgia had defensively the fact that they could get that many points on them was just shocking yeah and I'll say this too like I don't know if we've got enough time

unless we go at like an hour for me to talk about everything that I liked from that game. But the first comeback from Georgia, I remember looking at the guy next to me in the press box and I told him, I said, this is it. You know, like Georgia's about to run away with this thing because Georgia got back in the game by running the ball. They got back in the game with a long run from,

from Kenny McIntosh and Stetson Bennett runs it in on a quarterback sweep. Kendall Milton has a big run, and you don't see Georgia lose ball games when they run the ball. I mean, it's kind of a silver bullet for them if they run the ball like that, so they ran their way back into it, and then Ohio State, with all the guts and C.J. Stroud and everything that you could possibly have, just decided they were going to try to run away with it again. And, you know, Georgia was able to kind of keep it close. Georgia missed some field goals in that game. I want to say they at least missed one.

I'm not sure if they missed two. And then you get down to that second comeback from Georgia. And the Brock Bowers, Spider-Man, Superman, you know, stay in bounds, get the ball just over the first down mark that allowed Georgia to not walk away, turn over on downs and allow Georgia to kind of get three points out of that and stay in the game. Such a massive play. It was, it was unbelievable. And, and yeah, the, the, the two comebacks were a big part of it too. And, and, too. And you're right. It totally seemed like C.J.

Sprout Shroud was playing a brand of football that was going to keep Georgia from being able to get there. It was almost like – I told people when Georgia lost to Alabama in the SEC Championship game this past year, the way Georgia's roster is set up is the win streak, the 29-game win streak, whatever it ended up being, it was always going to be broken when Georgia didn't play well. It was always going to be broken with folks pointing the finger

because Georgia set up to where, hey, if Georgia plays good football, it's not going to lose. And Georgia was playing good football in that Ohio State game, but C.J. Stroud was almost so good that he could beat Georgia on a good day. Yeah, and we'll talk about Marvin Harrison. Cause we have to talk about how well he played, how big of an impact him going out of that game was and the play that he went out on, I think probably did turn the game, but I kind of want to go back to the, the run-up to the game. Cause you and i were both there in atlanta doing the interviews with everybody and a lot of the questions that we were asking were about the

physicality of ohio state versus the physicality of georgia how would ohio state match with that and then also how would cj stroud perform in a big game like stetson bennett we weren't asking those questions like cj stroud was the the big prospect. Stetson Bennett wasn't. And also Stetson Bennett had just played in a national championship game. So like the question was kind of answered for him. For CJ Stroud, it was, well, you've been good, but have you really been tested? Have we really seen all of your skillset? That was the most amazing thing to me because I thought CJ Stroud was pretty defiant coming into that game saying, hey guys, I know what I am. I can handle this defense. And man, he was right. He was. And I also think Ryan Day deserves a lot of credit because I do think it was pretty clear that Georgia was the more physical team in that game. And it was what we all thought going in.

But it almost seemed like Ryan Day knew that. And I got what we all thought going in, but it almost seemed like Ryan day knew that. And I got to give a coach a lot of credit when you know that maybe you're at a little bit of a physical physicality disadvantage, maybe even a physical disadvantage. And you put a game plan together the way they would roll the pocket and throw back and create these situations where they were making Georgia defend, uh, in the back half for four, five, six seconds at times. I mean, nobody, nobody can cover Marvin Harrison Jr. that long. Nobody can cover Emeka Ibuka that long.

I mean, they had such a phenomenal game plan. And speaking of game plans, I feel like Georgia made a decision in that game that ultimately won them the football game. And that was they got to the point that they're like, listen, we're not going to stop them. We're not going to make them punt. We may get them to punt once or twice, but that's it. We're just going to have to we're going to have to play a game that we can stop them in the red zone. And that ultimately ended up being the differences. You saw two kind of masterclasses there in coaching of one that kind of figured it out on the fly and another that just came in with an absolute masterful game plan. Yeah. And now we'll talk, you talked about the comebacks and you mentioned

that first comeback. I thought that was, you know, it's absolutely critical when they jump on Georgia 21-7, like that game could have gotten really out of hand if Georgia's not careful. But what did Georgia do offensively to get itself back in? Well, the first thing was running the ball the way they did. I mean, the big run by Kenny McIntosh, that was one of the more explosive run plays, if not the most explosive run play Georgia had had all season. They got Kendall Milton, who had just gotten healthy. Kendall battled injuries his entire Georgia career.

I want to say he had come back from a knee or a hamstring to be a bigger part of that offense. I think he ended up with just two carries in that game, but one of them was a touchdown run. Another one was he kind of ran over a guy and set up another touchdown. In the touchdown run, he runs somebody over at the goal line too. Yeah, it was the best run. I remember thinking that's the best run I've seen from him all season. Yeah, and I thought Georgia had gotten something going there that Ohio State wasn't going to be able to deal with. Kudos to them for dealing with that, for getting it going.

And you've heard Georgia players talk about it since. Like, they were preparing for Ohio State, and there was a lot of respect there. They said that's the one team we played that year that, you know, and speaking from a Georgia player perspective, that they didn't have any hopes. We didn't feel like they had anywhere we could really exploit. But, yeah, Georgia ran themselves back

into it on the first comeback. And the second comeback was just Stetson Bennett. And this is another one of my favorite things about it is Stetson Bennett had checked off every box. He had won a title. He had won an SEC title. He had had a very big season up until that point, to the point that folks had kind of realized like, Hey, we were wrong about this guy, the Georgia fans. And there were many of them.

And, and it's almost like people who is so much like the reverse Woodstock. You know, you talk to people after that, that famous Woodstock and, and you know, 70,000, 150,

however many people were there twice that many say they were there, they were lying. Okay. But there are a lot of Georgia fans now that'll act like they didn't say anything negative about Stetson Bennett when, you know, they were very negative about Stetson Bennett and Kirby Smart and to a lesser extent Todd Munkin for voicing support. My favorite part of that pregame week was sitting

or standing in front of that table with Todd Munkin at media day. And Todd Munkin essentially saying we screwed up. Like we should have been starting this guy earlier and explaining the whole situation. Like even going back to, to prior to the UAB game the year before in 2021, you know, so JT Daniels gets hurt against Clemson. They're trying to figure out who to start.

Carson Beck is, is sort of the leader in the clubhouse and Stetson just outplays him at practice and Munkin over and over again said, yeah, we just underestimated him. I mean, he basically said, Andy, he, he basically confirmed the fact we tried to run him off twice. Like we basically, we basically almost tried to get rid of this guy twice, and he wouldn't go. And this is when I tell people, like, man, Todd Munkin, I think,

is the best offensive coordinator in Georgia history. You can't argue with the results. He did amazing. But don't ever tell me that luck doesn't play a part in any of this because they are very, very lucky that Stetson did not oblige them and go do something else because him sticking around and doing that and him really pissing Georgia fans off and deciding to come back for a second year, they were ready to move on.

Carson Arrow would have started a year earlier if most Georgia fans would have had their – I was around. I saw what was being said. But he had had such a great year. And then he played such a big role in that comeback. Finding Arian Smith wide open there. A lot of times, sometimes you see those guys streaking down the field and the difference between a win and a loss can often be that little video that somebody puts up of the all 22 and look what he missed. Well, he saw

it. Georgia found a mismatch there. They got him matched up against Latham ransom who had done a great job against Brock Bowers all game, but Arian Smith, a 10, 100 meter guys, like a little bit of a different story. Um, and, and, you know, kind of rushed himself, got, got tripped up and then they hit that play and it was kind of like, okay, well, you know, Georgia is very much in this game now. That's exactly what had to happen for Georgia to win that game was that play. Let's go back into the second quarter. Georgia takes a 24-21 lead with a field goal.

But then right before half, Stroud hits Xavier Johnson for a touchdown. They come out of the half. He hits Ibuka for a touchdown. Now it's 35-24. You get toward the end of the third quarter because Ohio State basically owns the third quarter here. And this is where it's starting to feel like it's turned. Georgia sends everybody at C.J. Stroud.

He's going to get hit by three guys. It looks like he's just throwing it up, trying to throw it out of the back of the end zone and then how marvin harrison jr is there to try to catch that ball i like i at one i don't know how he realized that that was a catchable ball based on this where he was on the field and then gets his feet planted firmly both of them in the inbounds in the end zone. And he's catching that ball if Javon Bullard doesn't hit him. And then you have what happens next. And if you're an Ohio State fan, you're always going to believe that was targeting. If you're a Georgia fan, you're always going to believe it wasn't.

But the result was Marvin Harrison Jr. has a concussion and he's out of the game. Yeah, and the concussion part of it is what I think that lingers around that is kind of the smoking gun for Ohio State fans. They feel like, but even if concussion or not, the modern interpretation of that rule, it's not targeting. I mean, it was side of the helmet to the front of the face mask. Right, he led with his shoulder and he hit he hit his shoulder first yeah i just the part that i i wish you know i wish he hadn't gotten the concussion because me then we'd know who would have won one way or the other like and i will say this georgia

georgia did a really good job they got toasted by him early in that game. And then throughout the third quarter and through – really from kind of the second half of the second quarter on through that third quarter, they did a really good job against him. But I'm with you. I wish he wouldn't have gotten hurt. I think it would have been, you know, really interesting to see how Georgia would have reacted to that.

The other thing that's interesting about that is, so the end of that series, obviously they, they, you know, they couldn't, couldn't punch it in. Noah Ruggles kicks a field goal, like pretty big kick tough. It was a weird angle and he kicks it in there and it kind of, but kind of hooks it in. And it's interesting because you see how the ball is sort of hooking for Ruggles in that game and kind of portends what's going to happen later. But that kick makes it 38-24 going into the fourth quarter. So Georgia is down two touchdowns. This is not a good situation for the Dogs. What was it that you think that allowed them to make that second comeback?

Well, first of all, it started with forcing Ohio State to kick field goals. After that touchdown that you mentioned by Buka early in the third quarter, it was three field goals for Ohio State. Three field goal tries for Ohio State, and they missed the last one. Noah Ruggles had that short one that you're referencing there, a 25-yarder. He hits a 48-yarder later in the fourth quarter. It really just came down to one team scored touchdowns in the fourth quarter and one team kicked field goals in the fourth quarter, and Georgia needed everything that they got. But Stetson Bennett played a massive role in that. The most underrated play of that game was on that touchdown,

on the go-ahead touchdown drive for Georgia. Stetson Bennett steps in the pocket, steps up, and throws one down the seam to Kiaris Jackson, who was not a superstar for Georgia, was not even probably, if you think about it, one of the top six or seven offensive options for Georgia. He was the slot – he was their tough, gritty slot receiver. You know, he was the guy that, you know, did all the dirty work

and took the big hits and hadn't been, you know, healthy for most of the season. But Georgia's, you know know i can't remember exactly where they were at the time i think they were out like at the 50 yard line they might have been right at midfield and uh stetson hits them for 35 yards down to the 15 it was first and five from the 50 yeah yeah so they they had it from the 50 there and it was you know georgia man it was i couldn't believe the comeback. The comeback is a big part of it. Don't get me wrong.

But there was so much in that game that when you look back, you think about this play and you think about that play and who made tough plays in that game or who was at the right place at the right time, the Javon Bullers, the Kiaris Jacksons. There were so many different elements that just made that game so fun to watch. And plus, i didn't have to rewrite my gamer like six times well and we have to talk about the so bennett hits keras jackson then it's a little five yard pass to kenny mcintosh that sets up second and five on the ios

eight ten next play bennett's under under some pressure he doesn't really have a chance to fully get into this throw, but an incredible route by A.D. Mitchell to beat Denzel Burke, who is a very good cornerback, where he kind of – he's being covered tight by Burke in the end zone, and kind of he makes a move to his right and then goes to his left very quickly, and Bennett hits him perfectly. He makes a move to his right and then goes to his left very quickly. And Bennett hits him perfectly. And A.D. Mitchell at this point has not caught a pass since week two.

Right. Yes, that was an unbelievable play. He may have had one earlier in that game, if I'm not mistaken. That's right. Going into the game, he hadn't caught a pass this week. That's what it was. He may have had one earlier in that game. I'm still not even 100% sure on that. But, yeah, I mean, listen, Georgia fans were not very happy with the fact

that A.D. Mitchell went to Texas. But the guy contributed to a touchdown. He caught a touchdown in all four of Georgia's playoff games while he was there, and that includes basically the one that won the game against Alabama. You know, he, he did some big things in a Georgia uniform. That was an incredible route.

It was incredible timing there. He had three catches for 43 yards in that game. So he did have two catches prior to that one. But he, AD was, listen, a lot of guys that move on via the transfer portal, you know,

they don't get considered damn good dogs. You know, Tresman Marshall may be one, even though he was a part of guys that move on via the transfer portal, they don't get considered damn good dogs. Tresman Marshall may be one, even though he was a part of the Alabama team that beat Georgia, but he stuck around for a long time. But I don't know how a Georgia fan can't be extremely thankful for the guy that wore number five in those 21 and 2022 seasons because he made some massive plays for them in really big moments.

So that touchdown gets scored. Ohio State still has a chance, and we get back to our theme. I believe. Yeah, we get back to our theme of the day, which is how great C.J. Stroud was. And remember, C.J.'s been throwing all over Georgia, but also setting a lot of that up with his legs. Like you mentioned, Ryan Day's plan was, was roll him out, get it, get the pocket moving, but also he could just run at times and 28 seconds. Well, 39 seconds left essentially uh he runs 27 yards to the georgia 31 so they're in field goal range i still don't know why ryan day let four seconds run off the clock before calling time out here

this yeah day is it got cooked probably rightfully so for how he manages the next like once cj stroud gets tackled there how ryan day managed the next couple of plays was not great. No, I mean, and that's something. At this point, when you look at the NFL and you look at college, you're just going to have to accept that those are very hard situations. We've seen it over and over and over again. Fans think they know best. You know, if you're sitting there beside a half-eaten bowl of Tostitos

and, you know, about four beers in, then you probably are in a good situation to make the perfect call at the perfect time. It's a lot easier on Madden or NCAA. It's a lot easier. But we see it too often from really good, really smart football coaches that let a few seconds tick off. Kirby Smart's done it too.

That we have to accept now that it's just extremely hard. It's just extremely hard in that moment with everything you've got going on. But, Andy, I do want to point out something on that final drive. That 27-yard run, I thought that was it. I was like, man, this thing is it. And then on first and 10 from the Georgia 31, I've got to start giving a lot of credit to the Georgia defense here because I didn't think Ohio State was going to run the ball in that situation.

Georgia apparently was ready for them to because they hit the running back for a one-yard loss. So that takes them back. It was Dallin Hayden who's going to be at Colorado this year. Yeah, so they knock a guy for a loss. And then a guy that, you know, during the game, he had given up a touchdown pass to Marvin Harrison Jr., you know, Keely Ringo, the hero of the national championship game

the year before. Georgia fans have been beating up on him. Even though the touchdown he gave up to Marvin Harrison Jr. was C.J. Stroud, I believe, had the ball for almost six seconds in the pocket. You're not going to cover anybody that long. He came up with two incredible defensive plays there at the end where they tried to go at him, and he had extremely tight coverage and did a nice job getting stops on second and 11 and third and 11,

and that brought up Noah Ruggles with that kick. And another favorite thing about that game, you look back at it, I mean, stroke of midnight. I mean, you couldn't, I mean, the universe was just in lockstep that day. You know, right at midnight you know, that kick, you know, goes wide left and Stetson Bennett runs out on the field. Like, like you just want a car on Price's right. And it was, it was wild. Well, and also it doesn't totally erase the memory of second and 26, but that's on that field.

Georgia's had the most heart-ripping loss you can possibly have on that field. And obviously, those players weren't involved in it, but for the Georgia fans who probably sat in very similar seats and watched that, how cathartic was that to have it go their way when it very easily could have been another get your heart ripped out situation? Yeah, I mean, it definitely softened the blow a little bit. It probably would have softened the blow even more if you had been trying to win the first national championship um because i do think there was some there were some georgia fans that were at ease with what was going to happen in that game no matter what because they had had won that title and i'm not saying they didn't want to win another one i know they did i know they did but it would there's just no way to

replicate how much more that means if you're trying to win that first national championship and dealing with that particular thing i mean georg Georgia had played well. They had done a lot of good things. They had missed some opportunities. You're going to miss opportunities in big games like that. Stetson had played well. And again, that takes me back to Stetson had won a national championship. Stetson had overcome the doubters. The one thing he hadn't done to that point, Andy, is he had never really taken the ball in a shootout and gotten Georgia over the top of one of those. All the other games that he had won, all the other big games, the defense had played well. There hadn't been a ton of points. The mark of an elite

quarterback, Andy, you are not an elite quarterback, according to fans, unless you take your team and you win a shootout. Otherwise, you're living in a privileged situation where you don't ever have to do it. And that was Stetson finally checking off that final box, that one last criticism that a Georgia fan would have is, hey, can this guy win us a big game when the other team is scoring like crazy? And he did.

And they're celebrating New Year's, and they're basically celebrating the national title at that point because TCU's already beaten michigan and everybody like i realized everybody had to kind of jazz up that game for a week but everybody knew what was going to happen like yeah georgia was so much better than than tcu this is why if we did a my favorite game segment on the georgia tcu game we'd be like how's that kickoff oh that was it game over okay basically i mean that that that's what the the other part of that is once you realize tcu was waiting in the wings you realize that this was the national championship game can i can i ask you a question real quick yeah was that the toughest one versus four matchup we've ever seen in the college football playoff?

Like, I mean, it has a number one. I mean, I guess Alabama in 17 when Clemson drew Alabama after just Alabama crushed Clemson in that game. Yeah, that's the only other one I can think of where. Yeah, you you catch a team losing that last regular season game. They are pissed off. They've got new life. I mean, Ohio State even more so because Alabama, you kind of felt like they were – you kind of felt really good about them still getting in.

And for Ohio State, it would have been so big to beat Georgia because of the way they had lost to Michigan in 21 and 22, like where they'd been out physical, the 22 when they were more out physical at the end, 21, they just got their asses kicked the entire time. But it would have been a way to show, hey, we're not this soft team that you've been. And I do think that Ohio State did get a measure of redemption,

even in a loss that yeah you thought okay this team is one one kick away from winning the national title and as bad as things are for ryan day if that kick goes through and they would have beaten tcu let's be real here like we talk about ryan a differently now than if that kick hadn't gone through. If he has a national title on his resume, even if they lost to Michigan last year and Michigan still won the national title, Ryan Day's not under the pressure he's under going into this season. Man, folks need to quit talking.

They don't need to mention Ryan Day and pressure in the same sentence. I know Ohio State and Michigan does. Listen, I've seen Georgia lose to Georgia Tech, and that should happen a lot less than Ohio State and Michigan losing to each other. I get it. I know that. But it makes people go crazy when you lose those end-of-year, essentially in-state or border rivalries.

Ryan Day is one of the best coaches in college football. You're not going to do better. You're not. to do better. You're not. It's impossible. Well, we'll have to talk to our friends from Letterman Row about that because their message boards at this point say different, but they wouldn't if Noah Ruggles makes that kick. They shouldn't.

They shouldn't. Listen, I still think Georgia was a markedly better football team on its best day. But I think when you combine the desperation that Ohio State had, the new lease on life that Ohio State had, and the plan its coaching staff put together that day, they had a chance to win that game. And I think that's a testament to how good of a football coach he is. I mean, all you got to do is have a quarterback execute –

I mean, sorry, a kicker execute a kick. And that's the difference. Yeah, and Ruggles had been really good all season. That was a very uncharacteristic miss. But what a game. And like you said, that it struck midnight right as the ball passed the upright was just perfect. And I know the Dogs, this is quite a blessed, charmed time for the Dogs as they went for their second consecutive national title.

And well, Jake, thank you for sharing the memories. That brings you right back to New Year's Eve 2022, going into 2023. I'm going to say the best player that I've ever seen face the team I cover, C.J. Stroud. It was Baker Mayfield before that, especially for like three and a half quarters or two and a half quarters there in that Rose Bowl.

But C.J. Stroud reset the bar, blew that performance out of the water, and is probably going to be tough to beat that one for anybody. I'll tell you what. When I'm picking which semifinal I want to cover, I'm just going to go where you are. Because you've been blessed to cover some great ones. Well, I got to cover a dud in the Orange Bowl the year previous.

That's true. But I'll take the risk. Because if it gets anything like that Rose Bowl between Georgia and Oklahoma or that Peach Bowl between Georgia and Ohio State, I will take the risk. I'll take it. Because if it gets anything like that Rose Bowl between Georgia and Oklahoma or that Peach Bowl between Georgia and Ohio State, I will take that. Yeah, a little meatloaf action here. Two out of three ain't bad. Two out of three ain't bad.

That's right. That's right. That's right. Jake, thank you so much. You got it, dude. Thank you to Jake Rowe for that. And let's all remember, by the way, Noah Ruggles did miss that kick. Noah Ruggles was a fantastic college kicker.

Fantastic. Sometimes it just sucks because the play doesn't go your way. You hit the ball wrong. And that situation, it's about as bad a situation as you can have for a missed kick. But that game was just incredible. And there's so many moments in it where it could have turned differently. And maybe we talk about Ryan day in Ohio state differently. Had that game gone differently? Because I think Ohio state would have beaten TCU

for the national title. Like I said before, but this is the situation we're in. So Ohio state now is in the position of needing to come back and show that they can beat Michigan, show that they compete on the national stage. But remember, they've been in that situation before. Let's go back to 2014. Ohio State had had a couple bad run-ins with SEC teams in the national title game after the 06 and 07 seasons.

Things hadn't gone that well on the national stage for the Buckeyes in a while. They entered the 2014 college football playoff in pretty strange fashion. It was the first ever playoff. The Buckeyes going into the last week of the season weren't sure if they were going to even make it. They did make it, and they played an epic against top-seeded Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. Spencer Holbrook of Letterman Road joins us to remember that game. Joined now by the great Spencer Holbrook of Letterman Road.

We got to talk Ohio State. We're doing the My Favorite Games series, and Spencer's favorite game, I think this is the favorite game of a lot of people who follow the Buckeyes. Ohio State and Alabama in the Sugar Bowl after the 2014 season. Not Ohio State beating Oregon for the national title.

Nope. Big team, USA, Soviet union, 1980 hockey vibes here where the, the semi-final actually eclipses the final, but Spencer we're doing this series. Basically my idea was I'd told a story about why the Boise state Oklahoma game was my favorite game to cover in person. It had more to do with me losing my mom and the fact that it would have been my mom's favorite game ever. That's why I picked it. For you, this is more personal than this game helped Ohio State win a national title or this game showed that the Big Ten can compete with the best of the SEC.

What was it about this game for you know, showed that the Big Ten can compete with the best of the SEC. Like, what was it about this game for you personally? Yeah, it's not the easiest thing to talk about, right? But that's college football. The memories kind of transcend the sport in a way. Like, I lost my aunt a couple years ago to breast cancer. And she died at 53 years old, like way too young. And one of my core memories with her is her and her husband used to go to Lake Erie every year, a couple hours from our home, and fish.

And then in the winter, we would have fish fries with all the frozen fish that they had caught all summer. And they decided they were going to do a fish fry for the Ohio State-Alabama game. And we kind of teetered on it, like, you know, how's this game going to go? Alabama's really, really good. Is Ohio State going to be able to do it with Cardale Jones? And sitting on, you know, sitting in her living room and watching that game and sharing that moment with my entire family, but with my aunt, who, you know, I don't get to do that with anymore, is a memory that I will always have because like that was not just a game that

you watch, but that was like a seminal moment in Ohio State football history. And I remember it more for everything that surrounded the game, just as much as, you know, the game itself and, and, and what it meant for Ohio and Ohio State. And, and I think, I do think sometimes also we, we kind of run past what it meant for the state as much as it meant for Urban Meyer, for Ezekiel, for Ohio State itself. So like,, there are a couple personal reasons there. There's a couple football fan reasons there. But, like, it became pretty obvious what my game would be. And, again, not the easiest thing to talk about, right?

And you have that memory of your mom's game or the game that your mom would have loved. Like, you have a game that I got to share with my aunt that, like, just one of those moments that you're just never going to forget. And that's what I love about college football. And you mentioned before we started recording because i went back and re-watched this game and and for the ones we've recorded everybody's gone back and watched the game you did not because you don't need to yeah i don't need to um so before i started covering ohio state football uh before i went to Ohio University, I was a huge Ohio State fan growing up, obviously being in the state.

And we had the game DVR because we wanted to rewatch it whenever we needed to. And I guess it was like almost like a comfort meal. You just, you know, eight o'clock at night, you got nothing to watch. Let's watch the Sugar Bowl. I fell asleep watching this game too many times to count. Andy, I don't know how many times, but plenty enough that I'm sure dish network was probably wondering why is this game being replayed so much in this young man's house?

And so, yeah, it was just very often. It's like, okay, I'm going to need to fall asleep. Let's let's flip to the second quarter. Let's let's get to that. Let's get to that. Steve Miller pick six and you know, let's let's rewatch a little bit of this game before I fall asleep. Listen, Brad Nessler has a very soothing voice. Absolutely. It's perfectly understandable. I met Brad

very briefly last year at Big Ten Media Days when they were doing their official welcome to the Big Ten for CBS. It took everything in me. Hey Brad, let's talk Alabama, Ohio state sugar bowl. Let's let's just do it. And, uh, you know, I'm sure he would have probably been, been willing to do it, but I didn't. Um, but it, it, it took a lot of restraint not to. So before we talk about what happened in New Orleans, we got to talk about getting to New Orleans because there's a lot going on here. Like it goes back to the previous off season with Alabama losing to

Oklahoma in the sugar bowl, Nick Saban kind of going on the vision quest, hiring Lane Kiffin as the offensive coordinator. They changed their offense completely. Blake Sims emerges as a quarterback. But meanwhile, at Ohio State, you had sad Urban Meyer eating pizza at the end of the 2013 season. That was supposed to be the year because they'd been penalized for 2012. They were perfect, but they couldn't play in the postseason. 2013, they get beat by Michigan State. This is Ohio State finally winning the Big Ten, doing this.

But Ohio State lost Braxton Miller in the preseason. JT Barrett emerges. JT Barrett gets hurt against Michigan. What is going through everybody's mind as JT Barrett is getting taken off the field against Michigan in terms of what the, what the season could be at that point. Yeah. I mean the layers, you could go so many layers back, right? Like even beyond urban Meyer getting hired and Jim Trestle getting stomped when he would face the sec. And then finally they beat Arkansas to beat an sec team.

And that game comes off the books because it gets wiped away by the NCAA. So you don't even really have an sec win then. And then you're supposed to win, like you said, in 2013. You're supposed to play in the BCS championship game in 2012, and you probably would have beat Notre Dame, but you couldn't. And so there's the Alabama angle there. And then in 2013, you lose to Clemson and all of the fallout there. And Braxton Miller comes back and then gets hurt.

But the JT thing against Michigan, you know, he was pretty bad against Virginia Tech in that, in that second game of the year. And you go on all season, he's fantastic. He lights up the Michigan State secondary in 14 on the road in the night game in a huge spot. And they kind of reclaimed the big 10 there. They go to Michigan and, and get a good win or they play Michigan and they get a good win against Michigan, but JT Barrett's hurt. So what are you going to do? Well, Cardale Jones comes in. And I think, you know, we say the rest is history, but I'm not sure. I think that's a little too glossing over the Cardale Jones effect here. And the way that the Wisconsin- You got to remember, like, when Cardale Jones comes in to replace JT Barrett,

Cardale Jones is most famous at that point for being the guy who tweeted I ain't come to play school yeah he's gotten and I actually it's kind of funny I saw Cardell today and and talked to him a little bit uh but because he was at Ohio State for camp uh but that's still what he's famous for and he wears a championship ring because it was that big of a moment in I guess social media history of Cardale tweeting that but to see him jog onto the field and you're like oh my gosh like we have no clue what this is going to look like this is the backup quarterback but technically and we always remember it as the third string but by all means like this was the backup that year because Braxton got hurt at the very beginning of training camp. And so the backup comes in and you're like,

okay, what's going to happen? Like in hindsight, like, is this like a, you know, is this one of those Florida state situations where the offense just doesn't look anything close to what it was. And, and I remember in the 2014 Michigan game, they picked up a fourth and one touchdown was with Ezekiel Elliott. And you started to feel like, okay okay maybe cardo can't do this and i don't know if he can do well against the wisconsin defense and and get them in a spot to make the playoff but but maybe just maybe he can do it

um and then you go to the wisconsin game and i've got a little story for after the wisconsin game as well if you're willing to hear it well i i am willing to hear but let me set up the circumstances of that week before we do so remember this is the first year of the college football playoff so we've never had a situation where the committee's got to pick the actual teams they've they've done the rankings a few times like very famously Mississippi State was number one the first week of the rankings and things had started to shake out at that point, but it looked like Alabama was going to be the number one team, and they're headed that way.

The big debate is, remember, you had TCU and Baylor, which had played. Baylor had won, but then Baylor had lost a game later. So you had TCU and Baylor as one loss teams in the big 12. They had games. Now they didn't play a championship game in the big 12. So like, while all this was going on, I covered the TCU Iowa state game in Fort Worth that Saturday, that same Saturday as the big 10 championship game. I then drove to Waco and covered Baylor against Kansas state. So, cause if they both won, they were both going to be declared big 12 champion. There was no championship game. What was the committee going to do with that? But then you had Ohio state, which had lost to Virginia Tech, which was playing Wisconsin with Cardell Jones, backup quarterback.

Now, this Wisconsin team, they were 7-1 in the Big Ten. This was a good team. It was a 10-win team. So please now tell us about the Big Ten championship game. Yeah, it was, I think, everything Ohio State fans could ever dream of. I had a high school basketball game. I wasn't able to watch it could ever dream of. I had a high school basketball game. I wasn't able to watch it. We get on the bus after the high school basketball game,

and we're screaming at the bus driver. I still remember who it is and everything. We're like, turn the game on, turn the game on. We need the radio on. And the first thing that we hear when the radio comes on is Joey Bosa having a fumble return for a touchdown to make it 38 to nothing in the first half and they say that and the bus goes crazy and then the bus driver gets on the intercom it's like are you sure you guys still want to be listening to this because it was such

a bad blowout and so like the next morning I wake up before I go to church my dad is a minister um so I just missing wasn't an option and so I wake up extra early and I rewatch the game. And it's like, oh, my gosh, like they might make the college football playoffs. I'm sitting in a pew the entire day on Sunday morning and just thinking like, you know, instead of what I probably should have been thinking about, I was thinking about the ways that Ohio State could get in the playoff. And church ends at, I think, 1150. I had a 20-minute drive home. And I made it about an 11-minute drive home. So I could get home in time to be in front of the TV to see if Ohio State made the college football playoff.

And, yeah, I mean, that entire, like, 24-hour period is just such a blur, right? And it's one of those moments in college football history. This is the first time this has ever happened. And the committee did, like, the unthinkable from day one and yeah so ohio state wins wins 59 to nothing and the committee did what they should have done which is which of these teams has the best chance to beat alabama ohio state tcu or baylor and now there was also the like TCU had been the three going into that week and, and they flip-flopped TCU and Baylor behind Ohio state. So they've moved Ohio state up and then flip-flop Baylor and TCU. So like, everybody's going insane at this point. Like not only did you put Ohio

state in, you flip-flop TCU and Baylor to where they should have been all like Baylor should have been ahead of TCU because Baylor beat TCU, but they hadn't had them that way. It was so strange. Just a, just a surreal moment. Right. And it's set up one of the, in my opinion, and it's part of the reason why it's one of my favorite games is it set up one of like the biggest moments I think in college football history, the 14 playoff doesn't work in my opinion if alabama boat races ohio state and the number one seed the first year you know beats the tar out of oregon and wins

the national championship easily because we didn't need a 14 playoff in that case the 14 play works because ohio state leaped over or leapt over TCU and Baylor and was able to not just beat but hang with Alabama. It proved that a 14 model could work. And does Baylor or TCU hang with Alabama? Maybe, but you needed a lot to do that because that Alabama team was really, really, really good. And you had a feeling that maybe New Orleans was going to be interesting,

but I don't know if we ever knew what was coming. Yeah. Well, and remember, so the SEC's national title streak had been broken the previous year by Florida State when they beat Auburn. But one, they had to beat Auburn on a last-minute touchdown. And two, Florida State basically was an SEC team. They recruit all the same players, competed against all the SEC schools for the guys they signed. They basically were an SEC team. So this was a chance to show that a team from somewhere outside the South could be the best team team in college football and it had been a long time since that had happened because like even going like usc is

not the the deep south but it is basically you know it's southern california and you had texas and then you had that run of sec dominance where that's all it was, basically going back to Ohio State in 2002. Yeah, and I think it was a big deal for the Midwest, right? Because the West Coast is doing really well then. Chip Kelly was doing his thing at Oregon and then moved on. You know, Pete Carroll had had his run at USC, and the West Coast was kind of doing its thing over there. And the South was dominating in in a little bit of its own way too with the national championships and and so the midwest didn't even have it a shot

really since 2002 ohio state out you know notre dame was in it but they didn't have a chance in 2012 so like it obviously is the the last team that like a notre dame and a michigan and you know some of these schools wanted to see in this spot but for the Midwest sake to show like it doesn't have to be the South to be great football um yeah this was just almost the most important thing and you know if we had to wait until 2023 to see Michigan do it I still don't think it would have had the same impact as seeing it in year one of the playoff where like hey this team can do it too it doesn't have to be alabama lsu um or florida right and they you know they had just seen oregon knock off florida state in the rose bowl yeah and that was a kind of universally disliked florida state team because

they were coming off the national title they were undefeated we kind of you know lived by the skin of their teeth and then oregon just creams them in the second half. So you had the lead in audience and they're like, okay, now we're, now we're really pumped up to get to new Orleans and Ohio state has the ball and it is, you know, big Zeke run down the right sideline really early in that first drive. And you're like, oh boy, this, this could be interesting. Cause nobody'd run on Alabama. really early in that first drive and you're like oh boy this this could be interesting because nobody'd run on Alabama like they had lost to they lost to Ole Miss that year I was actually

at the game in Oxford they lost and it was a like Bo Wallace played the perfect second half and Ole Miss had an incredible defense that year that this was different this was somebody's running on alabama what but then the defense holds an ohio state forced to kick a field goal and then there's an azik there's a zeke fumble that landon collins recovers and derrick henry you know with one of those typical derrick henry runs or it looks like people are bouncing off of him, scores a touchdown. It's like, okay, here we go again. Yeah, I mean, the first two Alabama touchdowns were Derrick Henry and Amari Cooper. That just tells you there are levels to this sport, and Alabama was on a level of its own.

Even the third touchdown to make it 21-6. Yes, this game was 21-6, and some people got a loose side of that. T.J. Yeldon was an insanely good college football player yes you said Landon Collins is in there you know look at some of the names on the Alabama defense Cyrus Jones who you know for whatever struggles he had in in the NFL like college football that guy was incredibly good and some of these defensive linemen Alabama had like up and down the roster it was just littered with guys that you do not want to line up against and when they go up 21 to 6 it's like okay Ohio State's kicked two field goals and other than that hasn't really done anything uh yeah so yeah it's it's

it's pretty crazy to think about that entire first half and really that penalty that kind of kick-started an Ohio State drive. I think it was an unsportsmanlike on Alabama that kind of kick-started Ohio State's first touchdown drive. And that's when you start to believe that maybe something could happen here. There's a Zeke catch. He catches along the left sideline and then just a really tough run to kind of set up that Marshall touchdown. And like, because you could see the seeds of it. Even though Ohio State, it looked like they were getting clobbered. You saw that the Zeke run on the first drive, like Cardale hit Devin Smith deep.

Like you mentioned great college football players who maybe didn't work out. Devin Smith was the guy who caught 35-yard passes over and over and over again. Yeah, Ohio State never lost a game when he caught a 30-yard touchdown pass. I think it was like 24, 25-0 in his career when he caught a touchdown pass of 30 yards or more. It was some crazy stat like that. The first half play, though, Andy, that kind of showed me like Ohio State can hang, and we talked about this before we started, there's a run up the middle where Cardale Jones doesn't have anything.

He doesn't have anything. He takes off up the middle, and he lowers his head. It's not even his shoulder. He just lowers his head. And Landon Collins kind of bear hugs him to catch him and tackle him. And Cardale completely barrels over Landon Collins and just gets up and shrugs it off. And if you watch back to highlight, Landon Collins gets up and almost shakes his head like he wasn't sure what had hit him.

That's not supposed to happen. Yeah. This was a 255, 260-pound quarterback who just hit him. And that kind of showed me like okay if the quarterback can do that then I think the offensive line can can bang a little bit and when you look at that Ohio State offensive line it's better than I think it gets credit for Taylor Decker and Billy Price and some of those guys that were in there like that was a really really good offensive line and uh you like you said you saw the seeds it, but to go down 21-6 with Derrick Henry in the backfield elsewhere and the coaching staff that Saban had at that time, I think it's Nick Saban's best coaching staff he ever had.

Yeah, it's incredible the way that the rest of that game shook out because 21-6 with that staff and that running back should not be allowed to remember kirby smart's the defensive coordinator on the other side of the ball oh davis is the defensive line coach yep willie napier is coaching wide receivers he's coaching the receiver exactly it's it is lane kiffin's the offensive coordinator like this is a stack coaching staff now ohio state has urban meyer at head coach tom herman is calling the offense uh it's it's a such an interesting coaching matchup especially now that we know how how everybody turned out too but like alabama wound up picking tom herman's brain the following year to figure out what ohio state did them. But like we were talking about earlier,

if you watched Ohio State for most of the season, this didn't look like their offense because Cardell and JT are so different. Yeah. Yeah, and I don't know if they run the trick play for the second touchdown if JT's in there. But you knew that they would have something up their sleeve once Cardale was the quarterback and obviously I'm talking about the Evan Spencer

touchdown pass to Michael Thomas um yep an absolute um northern the northern football miracle I would say that that Michael Thomas got his foot in bounds like one of the and it was there was at least a centimeter between the sideline and his shoe. Like it. And I will say the, the ESPN shot of that was incredible. Like there was no turning that over. There was no overturning that because it was a, he caught it. It was a perfect catch.

And the shot was perfect of his shoe going straight into the, into the, the AstroTurf with literally a centimeter of green between the shoe and the white of the sideline. But that whole drive is great because the middle eight, I don't think we even knew that term yet, but this was an ultimate middle eight game. And you mentioned that the Cardell Jones 27-yard run,

that's a sack like he was gonna be sacked and i don't like jt doesn't get out of that because he's not big enough and then he doesn't barrel over landon collins but that run sets up that evan spencer to michael thomas td and that td i like, just grabs the momentum because this is right before halftime. And Ohio State has all the momentum going into halftime. And the ball to start the second half. Which they then cashed into.

What did you say about Devin Smith and long touchdowns? There's your 47-yard Devin Smith touchdown two minutes and 16 seconds into the second half. And it completely flipped the entire script there because if Alabama gets a stop there and continues to hand the ball to Derrick Henry, you're talking about a completely different game. But I think that touchdown solidified into Nick Saban's mind, into Lane Kiffin's mind. Maybe they had to do something a little more special than they thought they were going to have to do to get past Ohio State

because the game plan after that was not the same. The way that they pounded Ohio State inside, the way they got Derrick Henry and T.J. Eldon the ball inside before that moment, I think the tenor of that game just completely shifted. And it's 27-21. Ohio State is now on a 21-point streak, and Alabama gets the ball back. And it's an absolute critical drive. You've got to have a touchdown there. And now you're asking Blake Sims to do more than Blake Sims was capable of doing.

And I think that's the interesting thing about alabama because i like throughout the nick saban era you can you can look at losses and see what they meant and what happened and what changed after those losses this is one i think taught nick saban something about quarterback play because first of all i don't think we give aj marron enough credit. I think AJ McCarron was a pretty good quarterback at Alabama, but he probably wasn't as dynamic as Jalen Hurts, as Tua, as Mac Jones, as Bryce Young, those guys. The way Alabama recruited and developed quarterbacks changed after this. Like Jake Coker takes him to a national title the next year, but Jalen Hurts is on the way. Things are changing at that point. Blake Sims, I think, had a good year that year, but in that situation against that Ohio State defense with those monsters,

he was not the guy that you wanted with the ball in his hands like deciding the game you wanted to be handing to derrick henry for that and this is the drive where that had like he throws a pick to steve miller and i mean it was a bad throw it was a bad decision steve miller is just filling a filling a zone like i'm here why are you throwing it to me? And he just takes it back. It's one of those moments where, like, if you gave, like I know some guys who cover the team then. If I gave them before that game 50 guys on the roster who would flip the Ohio State-Alabama game, maybe 60 or 70,

I think they would have named 70 guys on the roster of the 85 that would have flipped the game before Steve Miller. Steve Miller was a decent player. Urban Meyer, one of Urban Meyer's favorite players. So let's be, let's be real about that. He's a decent player, but for him to drop back into coverage with the absolute perfect call for what Alabama was going to do and to just step in front of that pass and to run it back there's still a picture in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center I walked past it today of Steve Miller celebrating with the Ohio State sideline behind him I think people kind of forget because this game was in New Orleans they think that Alabama's crowd kind of dominated this game

it was more split than I think people would like to remember. There were a lot of Ohio State fans on Bourbon Street that week leading up to the game. Some of the stories I've heard of Ohio State that week leading into the game, a lot of Ohio State fans there. And to get the momentum not just back on your side, but to take a two-score lead against that Alabama team with a pick six like that, that is the kind of thing that completely puts the game, you know, in the balance for Alabama.

Like Alabama kind of saw a punch that maybe it couldn't recover from. And one thing that I read about that is Saban had had steady game managing quarterbacks every year at Alabama. So much so that they hadn't thrown a pick six since 2007. And that Sugar Bowl pick six by Blake Sims was the first pick six for Saban's team since 2007. And it kind of just shows like maybe Blake Sims wasn't quite ready for that exact moment. No, he wasn't. And the thing is like Steve Miller is dropping. That's the surprise. Steve Miller is dropping into coverage because somebody else is coming.

And it fooled Blake Sims. And then Steve... Let's not discount Steve Miller making that play. He's not designed to make that play. He's a defensive end. He's not supposed to be able to do that to pick that pass off and run it back, but he did because Ohio State had some freaks on that team. Yeah, but then credit to Blake Simms because he comes right back on the field

and they go on a quick drive. They needed to capitalize. They needed to silence the crowd. They needed to get it back in their favor, and they go down and make it 34 28 i mean super quickly right right at the end of the third quarter and and the teams go back and forth for the next 13 minutes yeah that fourth quarter if you're watching it it is even i'll admit it's a little tough like it's a little boring we're it's it turns into a fourth

quarter pump fest. We can't go through this entire show without mentioning J.K. Scott. He's a superpower. J.K. Scott is a cheat code. I think every punt he had was 70 yards. Every time he would punt the ball, Urban Meyer, the look on his face on the TV broadcast was like, why is Superman

on Alabama's roster in the form of a punter? Like this is how I feel every time. Remember who Ohio State's special teams coordinator was? Urban Meyer. So he's just looking on with jealousy more than anything. He's like, how come I don't have a punter like that? Yeah, if Alabama would have come back and won that game, it would have been because of field position in the second half

because J.K. Scott kept them in that game with the field position battle. And I know that's not the sexiest thing to talk about in my favorite game thing, but it's a real thing. It's 100% true. Yeah. Before J.K. Scott walked in that stadium, the best punt I ever saw in that stadium was Robbie Stevenson for Florida in the national title game Sugar Bowl between Florida and Florida State.

I was a walk-on on that Florida team. Robbie hit an 87-yarder that backed up Florida State in the first quarter. I was like, oh, you guys are screwed. If the punters boom an 87-yarder, this thing's over. But J.K. Scott, he he was like his entire career at Alabama. Like if you read all the stuff that's been written about Saban, it was actually J.K. Scott who taught Nick Saban that you don't treat every player the same.

Like some people are just special and J.K. Scott was that guy. But we talk about field position. We talk about where J.K. pinned the buckeyes let's talk about first and 10 from the 15 the play with everybody everybody when they saw what the title of this episode was they knew we were going to get to this play this play is one of the best blocked runs against some of the best defenders you will ever see in your life. And the key block on this play was thrown by the same guy who had the two best throws of the entire game. He had a throw of the football and he had a throw of two Alabama linebackers into each other. It was Evan Spencer who cracks back into a block, lays into a couple of Alabama defenders, wipes them out,

and then you get the Brad Nessler call of off to the races, can they catch them? No, they can't. Touchdown. And it's a play like that that you always know that every game like this is going to have that defining moment. And there could have been plenty of them in this game. There's candidates everywhere. But that run to be that long and to do it on the ground against like the biggest Alabama team ever, like the beefiest Alabama team ever. It, it, I think that was like, not the nail in the coffin of like,

you know, just for the game, but for the, the notion that the sec was king because like if, if that's a long touchdown pass, it's like, Oh, Ohio state, you know, drew something up and got them. No, Ohio state decided it was ready to run the football again, put its head down, blocked up Alabama man-to-man, got a really good block from a wide receiver, and then the rest is history.

He's just running through the Superdome with everybody going nuts, and you know that something crazy has happened. Well, and the play side of that, so you've got the Evan Spencer crackback, you've got Taylor Decker, you've got Billy Price is playing guard at this point. He moves to center later, and Pat Elfline's playing center. And they, they just blocked that place so beautifully. And then obviously you have Evan coming in and crushing one linebacker into another. And Zeke goes, it was, it is one of the prettiest plays you will ever see.

If you love offensive line play or blocking in general, like just watch the replay of that over and over and over again, because it is gorgeous. And I will, I will say this a little inside baseball credit to you watch back over this game and you watch the actual TV copy, not just the highlights. Todd Blackledge draws this thing back up from behind the play. And it's like,

he knows exactly what this play call is. It's almost like he was in Urban Meyer's earpiece the whole time. Like he knew exactly where Evan Spencer was going. He knew what he was going to do. He draws it up beautifully and then they, they unpause it and then that C just opens up for Zeke. And like that replay of that play almost sticks with me as much as the original moment on the, on the broadcast,

just because like it's beautifully drawn up by Ohio state. And then the broadcast knows exactly how to draw it up and explain to you, like, this is how this unpenetrable Alabama defense just got split for 85 yards on the biggest moment of the season. Like really cool. Just like the full broadcast there to watch back over that and see that open up, you know, as they draw. Yeah, it was incredible, but it's also not over yet because as much as that felt like the game was over in that moment, Alabama very quickly lets you know it's not over. Blake Sims, we talk about again, like he throws three picks in this game and they're crushing picks, but man, when he needed to get him down the field, he got him down the field.

So six plays, 65 yards, a minute 25. And he's throwing to Omari Cooper for a touchdown. It's a, it's a one touchdown game with one 59 to go Alabama. Then onside kicks. And we're not done with Evan Spencer yet. No, he snags it. He just, he onside kicks, and we're not done with Evan Spencer yet. No, he snags it. He should not have been able to get that. It was almost like one of those really quick reach grabs where he just snags it.

Because somebody was on him. It was the perfect bounce because it bounced higher than Evan Spencer thought it was going to bounce. So he jumps up to grab it. He's got a man laying on him or you know jumping on him while he's grabbing it and somehow holds on to it and then you think okay now it's over except then they come out and throw the football and cardo jones is just like continuing to sling it and you're like what what what's going on what are you doing cardinal what why are you okay you're we're actually doing this we're going to try to go for the win again

um in a six-point game with two minutes to go and you think like who's going to have to be the hero now because alabama's getting the football back again when they really shouldn't have when you could have just ran the ball out and the the final drive is with with sims launching them into the end zone is another one of those moments that you just kind of never forget um with one of my favorite all-time buckeyes uh making the play there at the end i was saying car you can't have a game where cardell jones is one of the stars without of course tyvus pow Powell coming in later. The roommates. Two goofiest guys on the team. I've had the privilege of knowing Cardo and Tyvus both,

and some of the stories I think could still, statute of limitations might not be up on that just because they were kind of the goofiest guys ever. But the final play of the game, Blake Sims has to throw Homer down six, and Tyvus Powell goes up in the end zone and grabs it. And he has said many, many times that he was in the,

in the right. Everyone else under the sun will tell you that he was in the wrong because there he is. All of his teammates trying to get him to fall down on the ground and end the game. And he's trying to score a pick six touchdown, a hundred yards with the clock already at zeros. He refuses to go down. The Buckeyes are ready to celebrate and he won't to score a pick six touchdown 100 yards with the clock already at zeros he refuses to go down the Buckeyes are ready to celebrate and he won't let the game end

and it's another one of those moments where everyone on that roster will tell you exactly what was going through their head when Tyvus was just running around the Superdome trying to score a pointless touchdown after the after the Hail Mary pick that that he had to seal that game, which kind of poetic considering he also had the interception to seal the 2013 Michigan game in the end zone there on that two-point conversion. It's just unbelievable. And that did it. That sends Ohio State to the national title game,

which Oregon was in it briefly, but then Zeke just annihilates them. You know, that offensive line, just Ohio state ran them over. And it was like, like I said, at the beginning,

a lot of USA, USSR hockey vibes because Oregon, Ohio state was USA, Finland. Like it was like, okay, we, we,

we overcame the hard part where this'll be easy. Yeah. And it was pretty early on where you looked on that field and you saw the difference in the body type of the Ohio State guys and how big and fast and athletic they were. And the light in the tail, I guess you would say, on a family-friendly show. Shake a tail feather, yeah, yeah. That's what Oregon was.

Oregon was a little late. And you had a feeling that Zeke might have one more in him. And that was kind of the final piece. If you remember, the three Heisman finalists in that game or in that season were Melvin Gordon, the running back from Wisconsin. Well, they beat him in the Big Ten Championship game. Amari Cooper, who they beat in the Sugar Bowl. And then Mariota, who won the award.

And they're the only team ever to beat all three Heisman finalists en route to a national title. So to beat Mariota that way as well, kind of the icing on the cake there. That was like a day-long coronation instead of a three-hour football game. And LeBron's on the sideline ohio versus the world sweatshirt on but it wasn't the same as what they did in new orleans because what they did in new orleans is the one that i imagine i know you were the one you always remember this one but i imagine if you ask most ohio state fans what's their favorite moment of that season it's probably sugar ball and i

think i think ohio state fans have gotten a little bit of a bad – well, they always have a bad rap. A lot of times it's deserved. Ohio State fans are listening. They know it. They're not afraid to admit that. But the thing about Ohio State fans is they always go back to the Sugar Bowl. And this year is going to be 10 years since the Sugar Bowl.

And a lot of times I always think that that is living in the past, but the more we've gotten away from that game, I think that it's important to always remember that game because Ohio State for so long was doubted as like the program that couldn't beat the SEC, even back to the 90s, the 80s, even in the 70s sometimes. Like Ohio State against the SEC has not always been kind to Ohio State. And to have that happen on that stage in the first year of the playoff as the four versus the one, you're doubted anyways, with the seeding and the spread. Like, for it to be in that circumstance,

like, Ohio State fans should always hold on to that. It's not something they should ever tuck away. If they win the national championship this year and they beat Alabama in the semis and beat Georgia in the final and take down two SEC heavyweights in the same season or LSU or Ole Miss or anything like that, they still should always keep the 14 sugar bowl or I guess the 15 sugar bowl if you want to get technical. They should always hold that sugar bowl in the highest regard because it showed them once again that they could finally do it.

Like you don't have to just live in the shadow of the SEC. You can do it. A decade later, it still fuels Ohio State fans' belief that we need to get back to when Urban was beating Alabama. And who knows? Maybe this is the year because it's national title or bust, baby. Spencer, thank you so much. Thank you to Spencer Holbrook of letterman row that was a fun fun trip down memory lane that game was incredible like just remembering how many long touchdown passes devin smith caught in college it just makes you smile like oh yeah that guy was amazing And then of course, Evan Spencer, just a game for the ages because it wasn't just him. He was a receiver. It's not just him catching passes. It's he throws a touchdown pass. He throws maybe the best block in the history of Ohio state football and makes an incredible

recovery on an onsite kick. This is the kind of stuff we watch for. That was such a fun project to work on. And like I said, if we didn't get to your team, do not worry. I had so much fun doing these shows. We are definitely going to do more. We will do different teams, different games. And I cannot wait because every time we do these, I get more fired up for the next time we get to see a real live college football game. So thank you so much for listening. Thanks so much for being with us. I have enjoyed my time recharging. I can tell you that right now, and I will be back

Monday with a fresh show for you. Thanks so much for being here. We'll talk to you again soon.