Jan. 8—Friday’s Cotton Bowl featuring Texas and Ohio State carries well over 100 years of history between the programs. In my opinion, the winner of this semifinal matchup in the College Football Playoff will go on to beat either Penn State or Notre Dame handily in the championship game. Either way, whoever claims victory in Arlington will take me back to the days as a young college football fan who fell in love with the sport and built a career off it.
I watched college football from a very young age but don’t recall many moments until I was around 10 when two of the greatest games changed my life. One was the Boise State vs Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl in 2007 which is still the most memorable college game I’ve ever seen. The lateral. The statue of liberty. You can’t beat that.
The other game is the last time UT won a national championship — the 2006 Rose Bowl versus USC. I can’t remember what I learned in a high school history class or what I ate last Thursday, but I will always remember Vince Young effortlessly scoring the game-winning touchdown and the image of him pointing to the sky as the confetti rained down. Young cemented himself into college football history forever and brought the Longhorns back to the top team in the country.
Texas has failed to capture that magic since the proclaimed “Game of the Century.” Don’t get me wrong, there’s been fun times over the years in Austin. I believed Colt McCoy would be the next great NFL quarterback after everything he did for the Longhorns; I believed Sam Ehlinger when he said “we’re back” after the 2018 Sugar Bowl win over Georgia. Unfortunately, in almost two decades since their last title, the Longhorns’ “powerhouse” status slowly seemed to fade away, until now.
The renaissance of a program in 2024 consistently had Texas as one of the top teams in the country and it may get even better in the years to come with Archie Manning taking over once Quinn Ewers leaves. For now, this season’s team gives UT the best chance to win the college football playoff and rise to glory once again.
This is where many readers may lose interest because I don’t want Texas to win. I have no animosity toward the Longhorns and I’m happy for their success but the Buckeyes are my team. I’ve been open about the sudden passing of my father in previous columns and how my career as a sports journalist is influenced by his belief in me. What I haven’t mentioned is his tie-in with The Ohio State University.
Growing up on a farm in Lancaster, Ohio, my father played football because what else was there to do? He wasn’t a straight-A student and didn’t like going to school, but he loved hitting people under the Friday night lights.
I was not made aware of any of his football experiences until one year when he sat and watched the greatest rivalry in sports with me, Ohio State vs Michigan. For most of my childhood with no outside influence, I tuned into Buckeye games every Saturday. Something about the scarlet and grey, the horseshoe and the tradition of the program piqued my interest with my father not saying a word about his past. Then, one year during the most important game of the season, my father subtly asked, “You know I played at Ohio State right?” With a confused look on my face, I turned to him and simply asked why withhold this information when I’d been watching Ohio State games for years. He explained that his time with the Buckeyes was short-lived as he joined the military soon after arriving in Columbus.
I’m not sure if it was fate or just a coincidence that I fell in love with the Buckeyes without the knowledge of my father’s history but I never questioned it since, especially after the inaugural college football playoff championship win in 2015. The Buckeyes didn’t have a quarterback like Young to carry them to victory; however, don’t ever tell me that third-string quarterback Cardale Jones isn’t a legend.
Now, I didn’t expect the Buckeyes to reach this point after another loss to Michigan and a heartbreaking defeat to Oregon earlier in the season. Every year, this program has failed to win the most important game and I thought this year would be no different. I’m not the biggest fan of head coach Ryan Day and even with a win over Texas on Friday, that feeling won’t change. Nonetheless, the beating Ohio State put on Oregon in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day gives me a sense of encouragement against a Texas team that escaped Arizona State by the skin of its teeth.
Both teams hope to reclaim their seat on the throne atop college football and I’m sorry for being the outlier here, but the team to beat is The Ohio State University.
