Then, Trey Sermon suddenly stepped forward with a second half to be remembered and when the smoke cleared- Ohio State grabbed a 22-10 victory, with it the Big Ten championship, a likely spot in the college football playoff, and the career rushing total for one game for Ohio State for Trey Sermon with 331 yards breaking Eddie George' record of 314 set against Illinois in 1995.
The announcement of Ohio State's likely playoff return will come sometime today.
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1) Trey Sermon's replacement of Master Teague, who was injured after two carries, and his second half is what turned the corner against a well-prepared group of Northwestern defenders.
Sermon picked this team up and lifted them to the playoffs with a performance so good that words don't cover it and was so incredible that brings me to number two.
2) Why did it take this long for Ryan Day to realize that Sermon (and Teague on his two carries for 23 yards) was the way to go in this one?
Until the Buckeyes started feeding Sermon, this game was in doubt and Northwestern would have had an upset for the ages.
Why Ryan Why?
3) You almost had the feeling that Urban Meyer (on site working for Fox) picked a phone someplace and told Day "Remember 2015 when I quit giving the ball of Zeke?, You are doing the same DAMN THING"!!!!
It seemed like this thought struck Day like the guy smacking himself in the head in a V-8 commercial and they began to run the football.
Buckeye history started to change.
4) Ohio State would be without over 20 players for the second time and some of those players were impact players such as Chris Olave, Baron Browning and Drue Christman with Covid positives with Marcus Hooker out for non-Covid reasons.
Should you wonder if Ohio State doesn't deserve a spot, look at who they have played without in the last month- Everyone is dealing with the same virus, but the Buckeyes between the virus, the Big Ten's handling of this from the beginning and the still silly 21 day sit-out, which no other conference deals with, might be the hardest hit overall.
5) And the defense gave ground, but never broke as Northwestern moved the ball, but other than the first score of the game in the first quarter on a nine yard run by Cam Porter, Northwestern would never reach the end zone again.
The Buckeye defense finished with two interceptions of Peyton Ramsey on the day and recovered a fumble as well.
6) You had to feel good for Justin Hilliard, who has spent six (yes, six) injury-filled seasons in Columbus and starting in the place of Baron Browning, Hilliard finished with nine tackles, two for loss, intercepted a pass in the end zone to terminate a Northwestern drive, and fell on a bouncing football to kill another drive.
Hilliard's been through a lot and playing as he did in this win had to make even a cold heart smile a bit.
7) Justin Fields did not play well.
It turns out that Fields injured his thumb in the game, which Fields said may have been sprained, and it clearly was affecting his throwing.
However, the injury was said to have occurred midway through the game and Fields wasn't playing well before then.
Fields finished the game with only twelve completions of twenty-seven throws for only 114 yards and two interceptions.
8) Numbers on the unlikely record setting day of Trey Sermon.
Five games this season: 55 carries, 344 yards, one touchdown.
Against Northwestern: 29 carries, 331 yards, two touchdowns.
9) On a team such as Ohio State, it's rare that the punter receives mention.
Kudos to the backup punter is even less common, so backup walkon Zach Hoover deserves some credit for pinning Northwestern inside their ten twice in his three punts.
Hoover replaced the missing Drue Christman in the lineup.
10) I know this wasn't a great win, other than for Trey Sermon, but it served its purpose.
Another Big Ten title and thanks to Notre Dame being blasted by Clemson, it almost assures the spot in the playoff.
11) My guess is that the Notre Dame loss will give the Buckeyes the third seed instead of the fourth and it'll be rematch time vs the Clemson Tigers and good ol' Dabo.
See you there!
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