Mark May is probably still wrong, although it doesn’t look like he said anything about this game. Hmm… hope he’s OK. He did talk a ton of shit about Dwayne Haskins after the Washington Professional Football Team released him. So let’s just assume Mark is wrong. Also, I’d forgotten Cardale’s “12 Gauge” nickname. Are we cool with doing gun nicknames? Or is that, like, so 2014? I’ll tag his twitter and he can let us know. The last Buckeye QB to take down Bama can have whatever nickname he wants I guess. Sorry (clears throat), THE ONLY BUCKEYE QB TO TAKE DOWN BAMA CAN HAVE WHATEVER NICKNAME HE WANTS, MOTHERFUCKERS!
So, anyway, The Buckeye Football Team, the focus of this here website, went out and murdered the Clemson Tigers Friday night, 49-28. It was very entertaining. Justin Fields went nuts, despite being broken in half by Clemson’s resident crazy guy. Trey Sermon did an excellent Zeke Elliott impression, AGAIN – and somehow became a perfect meme immediately. The receivers and tight ends caught EVERYTHING, while the defense got better and better until they were just scaring the shit out of Trevor on every play. And now we have the opportunity to play Alabama and do it again. In the other semifinal, Alabama put a beatdown on Notre Dame 31-14, with the late touchdown covering the spread if you bet ND +18 or 19 or whatever it was. The ESPN folks kept saying the late touchdown “was relevant to some.” Everyone’s objectively pro-betting on college athletes at this point – why are we being coy?
Some discussion of Mr Fields. 22 of 28, 385 yards, and 6 TD’s. A pretty good day. Fields is now in sole possession of 2nd place in Buckeye history with 62 passing TD’s. In the 2nd Quarter, with the Bucks up 21-14, Justin had a little scramble and this crazy motherfucker called James Skalski speared him in the ribs like a torpedo. One of Skalski’s claims to fame, aside from the chin strap beard thing, is getting ejected from big games for being a bonehead. He got kicked out of the championship game last year as well. I figured Justin had about 7 broken ribs and a collapsed lung. But, since Fields is super-human, he took one play off before coming back in and bombing another TD. When he threw it, his face looked like he broke a couple more ribs. He took a couple aspirins at halftime and came back and looked totally fine…?
Can Fields pull a Kyle Trask and go nuts on Bama? And perhaps our defense plays a little better than Florida’s? And that puts us over the hump?? Justin’s got 9 days to mend his exploded rib cage and figure out the Alabama defense. And then after that he can come back for his senior year, break JT’s unbreakable passing TD’s record (104), win the Heisman, and not go to the Jets! Who are we kidding? He’ll probably still end up on the Jets.
Trey Sermon. Running the ball, Trey had 31 carries for 193 yards and averaged 6.2 yards per carry. A good way to win football games is to average 6.2 yards per carry over and over again. He only had 1 TD, because anytime we got within 40 yards of the goal line, Justin threw another touchdown. Sermon is up to 868 yards on the season, good for 61st place all time in Buckeye History. On Friday, Sermon passed Justin Fields! He needs about 4700 yards vs. Alabama to catch Archie Griffin for 1st place.
Trey had a second TD called back after he did one of those Land-On-The-Defender-Flip-Over-And-Keep-Running plays. He knew he was down. He knew his elbow AND knee had touched the ground, and he probably wasn’t going to get away with it. And as the replay was happening, he did the most ridiculous, shit-eating, mischievous grin directly at the camera. Perfectly timed. Can you practice that kind of thing? Approximately 2 billion people did a tweet using that grin with a “when you (honestly, it kinda works for everything)” caption. So THAT was fun.
Receivers and Tight Ends. Chris Olave did his thing. 6 catches for 132 and 2 TD’s. Fellow insane WR Garrett Wilson only had 2 catches, for 52 yards. Only 8 catches for 2 TD’s for our top 2 guys! Fields spread it out, though. And, with Sermon getting 31 carries, and 6 of the 22 catches going for TD’s, there were relatively few opportunities for the wideouts. The other wideout to catch a TD was a guy called Jameson Williams, who smoked his guy for a 45-yarder. Jameson is a sophomore who has 14 career catches and 3 TD’s. Fantastic! We’re going to need him when Olave goes pro… Our tight ends caught 3 TD’s because Clemson forgot that was a thing that could happen. 2 for Jeremy Ruckert and one for Luke Farrell.
On Defense, Shaun Wade and Pete Werner led the team with 9 tackles. 5 tackles for loss, including 2 sacks – one by Jonathan Cooper, and one by… Jaxon Smith-Njigba, the wide receiver? I don’t remember this at all because the sack was actually by Tyreke Smith, who plays defense but has the same jersey number. You’re wrong ESPN! Shit they fixed it. That’s what happens when you take a whole week to write about it. Anyway, the 4th quarter was characterized by our defense going 200 miles an hour and Trevor running for his life. It could also be that I had enough beers by that point that it just seemed that way. Trevor threw for 400 yards on 48 passing attempts, with 2 TD’s and an INT (by Sevyn Banks). He got hit a bunch of times and looked pretty frazzled by the end.
All-world running back Travis Etienne had a TD but could only manage 32 rushing yards and 4 catches for 64 yards. It turns out we remembered running backs can catch the ball out of the backfield! I’m so proud. The total rushing attack for Clemson was 22 carries for 42 yards, which, sources say, is not good enough.
Look ahead. The Evil Empire Awaits – Monday Jan 11. Many of you may not be aware, but in 2014, the Bucks defeated Alabama in the semi-final of the first ever CFB Playoff. Since then, Alabama have (plural, like the Brits say it) won 38 national titles and we’ve won zero.
They went 11-0 in the SEC this year, and if they beat the Buckeyes, SEC Dbags will be so high and mighty – it’ll be insufferable. And if we win.. well, they will still be insufferable.
Bama has (singular, like a real American) 2 Heisman finalists – QB Mac Jones and WR DeVonta Smith. Edit: I’ve been writing this post for so long that Smith has, in fact, won the Heisman. He’s the first WR since Desmond Howard to win it in 1991. So now we get to hear even more about Desmond Howard. Jones is a pretty standard big white guy QB… who happened to complete an insane 77% of his passes. 36 TD’s and just 4 picks. Smith is insanely fast and I have no idea what we’re going to do. 1600 receiving yards and 20 touchdowns. Some of the guys who’ve had more than 20 TD catches in a season: Larry Fitzgerald, Randy Moss, and Davante Adams. The latter I keep confusing with Smith. Shaun Wade is going to need to go nuts. We’re going to need Haskell Garrett, Jonathan Cooper (and everyone else) to get in Jones’ face on every single play. We can’t have Smith go all Sammy Watkins on us. The other badass dude they have, Jaylen Waddle, was injured early in the season. Both’s WR’s are projected first round picks.
In addition, they’ve got a real running back. Not that Etienne wasn’t real. But he’s more of a little guy. Najee Harris (NOT a little guy) has 24 rushing TD’s and almost 1400 yards – averaging a positively Trey Sermon-esque 6.1 yards per carry. Najee’s in his 4th year and probably finished pretty high in this year’s Heisman voting, behind the other 2 dudes on his team. Harris is a projected 2nd Round pick in 2021.
On defense, they have Patrick Surtain II, projected to go 6th overall in next year’s draft at cornerback, plus another 4 or 5 guys that will be drafted. Patrick’s dad, Patrick Sr, was a 3 time pro-bowler who had a ten-year career with the Dolphins and Chiefs. They also have other players on defense, including 2 more All-Americans, but it’s kind of rare when they break through for the average buckeye fan. They’re nameless terminators with numbers on their helmets.
Bama’s All Americans this year by position: 1QB, 1RB, 1WR, 2OL, 1DL, 1LB, 1DB, 1K, and 1 All-purpose (DeVonta Smith again, this time as a returner). So they’re pretty good, is what I’m trying to say. We’ll probably only win this one by 14 or 21.
-Eric
The Buckeye Football Blog 