“There’s a lot to grab onto when you’re watching film of somebody you’ve already played against,” said Ohio State head coach Ryan Day, whose team lost 32-31 in Eugene on Oct. 12.
“Sometimes when you are playing against a team maybe from another conference in the playoffs, there’s a little bit of an unknown. How can you expect this guy to play? What am I really looking at when I look at the teams that they’re playing? This team’s not that way because we played No. 80, and they played in the conference, so there’s a reference point as we move into this one. So our guys know what we’re up against, but they also know that they’ve evolved and we’ve evolved.”
The top-ranked Ducks have not looked back since beating the Buckeyes in one of the games of the year, winning their last six regular season games then downing Penn State in the Big Ten Championship Game to move to 13-0.
Ohio State won five in a row after losing to Oregon, but the Buckeyes’ momentum was derailed by a 13-10 loss to unranked Michigan on Nov. 30.
That prevented the OSU-UO rematch from happening in the Big Ten title game, but there has been a feeling since October such a game was inevitable.
“I’m excited,” Ohio State quarterback Will Howard said after the Buckeyes beat Tennessee 42-17 in the first round of the CFP on Saturday night. “It’s going to be a heck of an opportunity for all of us. I think we’ve all been looking forward to this one and for another crack at these guys.”
Howard, in particular, is anxious for a chance at redemption.
He had the ball in his hands as time ran out in the first game, failing to get on the ground soon enough for Ohio State to call timeout and line up for a field goal that could have won the game.
“The way that last one ended doesn’t sit right with me,” he said. “It still doesn’t. It still bugs me, and I’m just thankful for the opportunity that we get another crack at them.”
Of course, the teams won’t look exactly the same.
Ohio State lost starting left tackle Josh Simmons to a knee injury in the loss to the Ducks, and center Seth McLaughlin suffered a season-ending Achilles injury during practice in the middle of November.
Meanwhile, star pass rusher Jordan Burch has returned for the Ducks after missing the first Ohio State game.
“God doesn’t make a lot of people that look like Jordan Burch,” Oregon coach Dan Lanning said of the 6-foot-6, 295-pound Burch, who has 8.5 sacks in nine games this season. “When people see him, they’re surprised to hear he’s really 300 pounds because he looks really good at his size, but he plays like a beast on the field, relentless effort.”
The Ohio State offensive line struggled the last two regular season games against Indiana and Michigan without McLaughlin before turning in a solid performance against the Volunteers.
Lanning noticed that and had much praise for Howard when he spoke to reporters for the first preview of the Rose Bowl.
“I think he has good size, obviously, and he’s a big body,” Lanning said of the 6-foot-4, 235-pound Howard. “It’s hard to get down, (but) more than that, I think he’s built a lot of confidence in the guys that he’s able to throw the ball to and even some confidence in the quarterback run game.”
With his team off since early December, Lanning confirmed the Ducks took time to study their potential opponents — OSU or UT — more in-depth than they might usually.
Among the other potential variables are tweaks to the Ohio State defensive scheme from coordinator Jim Knowles, who began implementing more of the strategies he used at previous stops after his unit struggled to stop the run and the pass in Eugene.
“You look at the history of the team, you look at the history of the coordinators,” Lanning said. “This kind of is unique where it gives you a little bit more time to evaluate big picture, you know, just coordinator philosophies. And then also the original matchup — what that looks like and then what they’ve done since.”
Ohio State has played a team at least twice in the same season six times — but only twice since 1897.
The Buckeyes went 2-0-1 against Ohio Medical in 1896 then did not have a same-season rematch again until 1975. That season they won at UCLA 41-20 on Oct. 2 before the Bruins upset them 23-10 in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1 to ruin a perfect season for the Buckeyes.
This time the Buckeyes are hoping to give the Ducks a taste of that medicine.
“In life, you don’t get a lot of second chances,” Howard said. “The fact that we’re getting a second chance here is a blessing from the Lord. And we’re going to go out there and have some fun and let it rip, man, because this is all we’ve got. It’s win or go home.”
Wittenberg is the last team to beat Ohio State twice in the same season.
In 1894, the Tigers took the first matchup 6-0 at the Ohio State Fairgrounds that September then topped the Buckeyes 18-6 in Springfield in October.
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