On a day that should have been filled with celebrating a national championship among their home fans, Ohio State football was dropped for a loss with the announcement that defensive coordinator Jim Knowles was leaving for the same job and a hefty raise at conference rival Penn State.
Knowles arrived at Ohio State for the 2022 season and after an initial struggle in matching his system with personnel has helped Ohio State's defense become one of the best in the nation in the last two seasons and the best in their national championship-winning year.
Ohio State allowed only twelve points and two hundred fifty-four yards per game in 2024, leading the nation in both categories.
Knowles is rumored to have had philosophical issues with defensive line coach Larry Johnson. Johnson is the older man with more specialized responsibilities, but he is far more valuable as a recruiter than Knowles, who has made his disdain for that part of the job clear.
Knowles will make over three million dollars per season for Penn State. While Ohio State made an offer that would have made him the highest-paid assistant in the country, it's unknown if Ohio State matched Happy Valley's offer.
Penn State has upped the ante for 2025 with several players that could have entered the NFL draft returning in an attempt to emulate the success of Ohio State's returning stars in the past season.
Ohio State is losing eight defensive starters but they still have Caleb Downs and Sonny Styles returning and there is still plenty of talent for the Buckeyes, arguably more than Penn State even with the loss of eight starters.
It might not have been any of the reasons rumored.
Not the money, friction with the coaching staff, or issues with the Columbus pressure cooker.
It could be as simple as Knowles, after three years. has nowhere to go but down after this past season.
At best, Knowles's defense could keep the status quo and some of the best coaches prefer the process of building rather than maintaining, Ohio State had someone like that in Urban Meyer, so that's entirely plausible
Several coaches are rumored to be candidates, with Matt Guerrieri and Tim Walton as the leaders if Ryan Day wants to keep the position within the current staff.
From the outside, former Wisconsin defensive coordinator and current Denver Broncos defensive backs coach Jim Leonhard, former Ohio State defensive coordinator and current Green Bay Packers coordinator Jeff Hatley, and Iowa State defensive coordinator Jon Heacock would lead my list of a crowded field.
Eleven Warrior's Dan Hope details eleven coaches who could be candidates to replace Knowles here.
Ohio State is losing one of the best defensive minds in the game but several qualified men are more than capable of using the talent on campus to retain the Buckeyes' elite defensive level.
The favorites each notched victories on the card presented from Matchroom/DAZN Saturday night from Las Vegas but they did so in a decidedly different fashion.
In the main event, rising super middleweight contender Diego Pacheco overcame a slow start and a late stumble to grab a unanimous decision over previously unbeaten Steven Nelson,
I thought Nelson had won three of the first four rounds before Pacheco cut Nelson over the left eye late in round four.
The cut changed the bout's momentum as Pacheco dominated with Nelson's attack slowing with his decreasing vision and Pacheco landing his right without any problems from the Omaha boxer from the Terence Crawford stable.
Pacheco had Nelson in trouble in the tenth round and looked to possibly stop him, but Nelson showed his heart in the final two rounds. He landed several strong punches that affected Pacheco and appeared to bother the unbeaten star in the final round.
My score was a bit closer at 115-113 for Pacheco than all three judges' official scores of 117-111, but Pacheco deserved the nod.
Pacheco will bide his time for a while as he is the top contender for Canelo Alvarez from the WBO and won't wish to gamble that position but he could use some extra time to polish himself a bit for the day he would face Canelo.
Nelson fought well enough to deserve more chances against contenders but at thirty-six needs to be more active if he wishes to reach title contention.
Former Olympic gold medalist Andy Cruz continues to impress with a ten-round unanimous decision over Omar Salcido that Cruz controlled and showed a willingness to try to entertain viewers with an aggressiveness that hasn't been seen before.
Cruz boxed very well early but began to take chances in the middle rounds which opened himself up to take some shots from Salcido, who never stopped coming forward despite taking punishment.
Cruz tried to end the fight with a stoppage, pressing the attack and hurting Salcido in both the eighth and tenth rounds but Salcido showed resilience in lasting the ten-round distance.
Cruz appears ready for the next level of opposition, the top ten level, and will be a tough out for anyone in a talented lightweight division.
Salcido showed toughness and he'll have other chances after a determined outing.
I scored Cruz a winner at 99-91, which agreed with one judge, the other two scores were 98-92.
Due to an error of mine, I didn't add a third bout to the boxing challenge and missed the star of the night as junior welterweight Ernesto "Tito" Mercado crushed former two-time champion Jose Pedraza in four brutal rounds,
Mercado kept Pedraza in retreat throughout and one right hand popped Pedraza to the floor.
Pedraza rose but the referee saw his failing legs and correctly waved an end to the fight.
Mercado scored his sixteenth knockout in his seventeen wins and showed personality after the fight as he called out WBC lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson, who was in the audience, with pro wrestling style panache' threatening to "straighten the cap between Stevenson's teeth".
Mercado is a fighter to watch in 2025.
As for Pedraza, the aging veteran is 0-3-1 in his last four fights and didn't show much other than guts in losing to Mercado and retirement should be an option at this point.
The college season is in the books but we will have three more games in the NFL campaign with this Sunday's conference championship games determining who will be headed to the Super Bowl
The boxing challenge will be centered in Las Vegas for a Matchroom/DAZN card with two talented boxers knocking on the door of a title chance in action.
Unbeaten super middleweight Diego Pacheco will meet undefeated foe Steven Nelson in the twelve-round main event.
Pacheco knocked former title challenger Maciej Sulecki in six rounds in his last outing in August but was stunned by a Sulecki right-hand in an otherwise impressive victory.
The thirty-six-year-old Nelson, who is trained by Brian Macintyre from the same Omaha team as Terence Crawford, is unbeaten and knocked out undefeated Marcos Rodriguez in five last August but Pacheco will be the best opponent Nelson's met and who knows how Nelson will match up with Pacheco, who is one of the best young fighters in the sport.
Olympic gold medal winner Andy Cruz meets Omar Salcido in the lightweight co-feature.
Cruz has won his first four fights as a pro against good competition and stopped rugged veteran Antonio Moran in seven rounds last August.
Salcido has lost only once and crunched former title contender Chris Colbert in the ninth round in October, so he's not light work for Cruz, who won his 2020 Olympic gold over Keyshawn Davis in the finals but Cruz seems to be a cut above Salcido in class.
Super Middleweights. 12 Rds
Diego Pacheco vs Steven Nelson
Ramon Malpica and TRS: Pacheco Unanimous Decision Vince Samano: Nelson Unanimous Decision
Lightweights 10 Rds
Andy Cruz vs Omar Salcido
R.L and TRS: Cruz Unanimous Decision V.S: Salcido Unanimous Decision
Lightly regarded junior featherweight challenger Ye Joon Kim tried his best to win rather than survive in his challenge of the undisputed champion Naoya Inoue Friday morning in Tokyo. Still, the fight was over when Inoue landed his first strong right hand.
That right connected in round four and they would fight no further with Inoue retaining all four of his championships via fourth-round KO.
Kim was game and even landed a few right hands on "The Monster" but class showed the first time Inoue's power crashed home.
Inoue announced plans for three more fights in 2025, which is encouraging to boxing fans, and is reported to include a trip to the USA to meet the WBC's mandatory challenger Alan Picasso, a long-awaited defense against WBA mandatory Murodjon Akhmadaliev in Saudi Arabia, and then a Japanese superfight against WBC bantamweight champion Junto Nakatani.
All three will present superior opposition to Inoue than Kim and while each will be a significant underdog, each will have supporters that think their man will be the one that tames the Monster.
Nakatani's height and reach will be a difficult task against Inoue and despite his surprising loss to Marlon Tapales, Akhmadaliev has the technical skills to at least trouble Inoue for a few rounds.
It looms as a very interesting year for Inoue and should all three of those fights occur with Inoue wins, The Monster will have a major case for 2025's fighters of the year.
The boxing season begins to move out of the starting gate this weekend, starting with a Friday morning card from Tokyo with another appearance from "The Monster" Naoya Inoue.
Inoue, holder of all four titles at junior featherweight, was scheduled to face Australia's Sam Goodman in December. The fight was postponed due to a cut suffered by Goodman in training.
Goodman, the IBF's mandatory challenger, re-opened the cut in training for Friday's bout. This time, a substitute was found on a few weeks'' notice.
South Korea's Ye Joon Kim will step in for Goodman and even though his record is 21-2-2 and he's never been knocked out, Kim hasn't defeated anyone of world-class caliber and appears far out of his league, as most are, against Inoue.
Kim isn't likely to provide more than a few rounds of work for Inoue but it's a chance to see one of the best fighters in the world at work.
World Junior Featherweight Title.12 Rds
Naoya Inoue vs Ye Joon Kim
Ramon Malpica: Inoue KO 7
TRS: Inoue KO 2 Vince Samano: Kim Unanimous Decision
The Ohio State Buckeyes scored touchdowns on their first four possessions, added a field goal on their fifth, and then held off a furious late rush from Notre Dame to win the first CFP title 34-23 in Atlanta.
Quinshon Judkins rushed for 100 yards with two rushing touchdowns and a receiving score with Will Howard throwing for 231 yards and rushing for 57 more to pace the Buckeye offense.
With the national title trophy in tow, a different group of Buckeyes will start defending their title in August at home against the Texas Longhorns.
Olentangy Offerings
1) Ohio State scored touchdowns on their first four possessions and their fifth resulted in a field goal and would only score three points after that point.
However, that includes only three more possessions, the first ended on an Emeke Egbuka fumble after a big gain at the Notre Dame 24, their only punt of the game, and the final drive that resulted in the field goal that salted away the game.
2) Emeka Egbuka's fumble was the only Ohio State turnover of the game and it didn't result in any lost points as Notre Dame missed a field goal. Still, Ohio State would have likely scored on the drive, which would have helped Ohio State fans relax earlier in the fourth quarter.
3) Emeka Egbuka caught six passes during the game and became the all-time leader in receptions for the Buckeyes breaking the record of K.J. Hill.
Egbuka played in more games than the other Ohio State greats at the position and stayed for four seasons, unlike some of the recent stars at wide receiver. But hey, that's how K.J. Hill set the record, and Egbuka will have a better NFL career than that of Hill, who caught ten passes in two seasons with the Chargers.
4) TreVeyon Henderson had been the standout running back in the postseason before Monday but it was Quinshon Judkins taking over in the title matchup, scoring two rushing touchdowns, catching another one, and ripping off a seventy-yard run that set up one of his two scores.
Judkins may have scored on that run but he was concerned about someone coming from behind and punching the football away and he visibly slowed late in the run.
5) Both Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson moved over the one-thousand-yard mark in rushing during the win, which makes them only the second running back duo at Ohio State to accomplish that feat.
Archie Griffin and Pete Johnson did this in 1975 and Carlos Hyde along with Braxton Miller did the same in 2013 but Miller was the quarterback during that season.
6) Will Howard completed his first thirteen tosses and finished seventeen of twenty-one on the game but his running was perhaps even more impressive as Howard's designed runs gave him fifty-seven yards rushing on sixteen carries.
Howard came to Columbus heralded more as a runner than a passer but his running had disappointed somewhat this season.
7) Notre Dame took the opening kickoff and punished the Buckeye defense with the running game on the seventy-five-yard touchdown drive.
I thought that would change as the game played out as Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard was taking some serious hits on his nine carries on the drive.
Whether it was from the punishment or playing from behind, Leonard would run on only seven occasions after the first drive.
8) The biggest play came late in the fourth quarter with Notre Dame having scraped back into the game down only eight points with two and a half minutes to play, Ohio State faced a key third down and eleven on their own thirty-four.
If Notre Dame could come up with a stop, a touchdown and two-point conversion would tie the game.
Notre Dame decided to gamble that Ohio State would run the football to run the clock to the two-minute timeout and left their corners in man coverage.
Big mistake as Will Howard found the most electrifying freshman in the nation, Jeremiah Smith, for a fifty-six-yard gain to the Notre Dame ten as the hammer blow to the Fighting Irish's comeback hopes.
Smith finished with five catches, eighty-eight yards, and a touchdown but he's never made a bigger catch than the one he made on third and eleven.
9) Marcus Freeman had his struggles in his first game on the championship stage but of his two questionable decisions, I think Freeman is being unfairly criticized.
Notre Dame was down sixteen with just under ten minutes to go facing a fourth and goal at the Ohio State nine and Freeman sent kicker Mitch Jeter for a twenty-seven-yard field goal attempt.
Jeter clanged the kick off an upright giving Notre Dame nothing for their drive and some say even if it was good, Notre Dame still needed two scoring possessions.
My argument would be this- now two touchdowns win the game rather than needing two touchdowns and two successful two-point conversions to merely tie it.
Notre Dame needed their defense to step up to have those two possessions (they would have two but one was with only seconds remaining and out of timeouts) but Ohio State had generally kept the Irish under wraps other than the first drive and a few big gains based on bad tackling and Notre Dame needed nine yards on one play.
I'm not saying I would have kicked the field goal but I can see why Freeman decided to.
10) It's tougher to excuse Freeman for his other call, a fake punt on fourth and two on his own thirty-three, down 28-7 in the third quarter.
Notre Dame had called fake punts several times throughout the season and Ohio State was ready, keeping their defense on the field, and forcing an incomplete pass.
Under the circumstances, few believed Notre Dame was going to actually punt and Freeman may have done better with his best players on the field and trying to gain those two yards on fourth down.
11) I did wonder a bit on the final Ohio State drive before the pass to Jeremiah Smith about the decision to do nothing other than send Will Howard forward to run the clock.
It made me think that they were afraid of a turnover (justified) but gave the feeling of coaching scared that has haunted Ryan Day in big games.
Fortunately, Ohio State shrugged that aside with a courageous play call.
12) The national title is the ninth in program history with Ryan Day the fifth coach to win one along with Paul Brown, Woody Hayes, Jim Tressel, and Urban Meyer.
It was a wild ride to get to this point and it wasn't always smooth but Ryan Day and the Buckeyes managed to get through the season and the criticism of many (including myself) to earn the national title.
There are plenty of other items to explore and explain about this championship season along with thoughts on the 2025 season but those will wait until the near future (I hope in the next week or so) to write.
