C.J. Stroud threw for 348 yards and four touchdowns with an effort that may have erased his non-clutch reputation at Ohio State with Emeka Egbuka and Marvin Harrison Jr, each finishing with over one hundred yards receiving with Harrison grabbing two touchdowns and Egbuka another.
Ohio State finishes the 2022 season with a disappointing 11-2 record and returns to action on September second kicking off the 2023 campaign against the Indiana Hoosiers.
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1) Give C.J. Stroud all the credit that you can give for the type of effort that redeemed himself for his previous shortcomings in big games.
Stroud had often rolled up acceptable statistics in games that Ohio State lost, yet always seemed to come up short.
In those games, I've felt the argument was reasonably fair but in this one, C.J. Stroud stood tall and deserved better.
2) Stroud battled through his running game missing TreVeyon Henderson and getting Miyan Williams for only three carries, losing tight end Cade Stover in the first half and the biggest loss of all-Marvin Harrison Jr in the third quarter, and yet had his team in position to win with a long field goal.
What a game from Stroud and he nor the Buckeyes have anything to be ashamed of.
3) Stroud had often been criticized for not running enough over his career and yet it was his twenty-seven-yard run that placed Ohio State in a position to try the game-winning field goal
It's funny after all the quarterbacks that saw various criticisms (J.T Barrett) for running too much, Stroud was the entire opposite.
4) Where the game seemed to turn was on a third down throw to the back of the end zone to Marvin Harrison Jr in the last minute of the third quarter.
The throw seemed to be Stroud throwing the ball away (Chris Fowler called the pass out of the back of the end zone in live action) but Harrison came very close to grabbing the score before he was blasted by a Georgia defender.
Initially, a personal foul was called, which would have given Ohio State a first and goal from Georgia's one with a touchdown that would have stretched the lead to eighteen points.
Instead, after a review, the call was overturned and OSU settled for a Noah Ruggles field goal and a fourteen-point lead- AND the loss of Marvin Harrison Jr for the remainder of the game,
5) After the loss of Harrison, Ohio State was outscored 18-3 without its biggest offensive threat and despite the play of Emeka Egbuka, seemed to lack a big play threat to the Dawgs.
6) But the biggest issue came against a defense when Lethan Ransom fell down and left Arian Smith wide open for a seventy-eight-yard strike that would cut the lead to three after a successful two-point conversion.
Until that moment, I felt Ohio State would hold on for the win but not as much after.
7) Ryan Day called an excellent game for three quarters and seemed to be the innovative play-caller of days past and then when Ohio State needed it most, crawled back into a shell.
On first down, Day called a run play with Dallan Hayden for the loss of a yard, and then two incomplete short-range passes at the time that Ohio State still needed a chink of yardage to feel safe about a Ruggles field goal try,
8) In other words, Day spent most of the game throwing the ball down the field and opening up holes for their receivers and then decided to reign Stroud in when he had his best game of the season with a wide-open offense.
9) I'm not going to beat Ryan Day too much for this because he had confidence in his kicker and showed that he hasn't lost his touch for play calling but he still will need work on his tendency to play things too safely in big games.
It's easy to fire off about Day in the fourth quarter but for now, I'm going to choose to remember his best work and not his lesser from this game.
10) Day also called for a fake punt in the fourth quarter that worked for what would have been a key first down and kept Georgia off the field but just as the ball was about to be snapped, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart saw the lack of coverage by his team and managed to call a timeout.
That alone may have been the play that saved the Dawgs.
11) In the end, despite the disappointment of losing, Ohio State redeemed itself with its performance and showed its qualifications to be in the final four.
However, between the losses to Michigan and then Georgia, it's tough to say that this was anything other than a disappointing season.
Not awful, disappointing.
I wouldn't say Ryan Day is on the hot seat or anything ridiculous as that but it will be interesting to look back at this time next season and see what may have changed in his status then.
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