The No. 5 seed Texas Longhorns took on the No. 8 seed Ohio State Buckeyes on Friday night, looking to earn their first trip to the national championship game since 2009.
The Cotton Bowl Classic at AT&T Stadium was a defensive battle from start to finish, and with under four minutes left, Texas had a chance to tie it up. Trailing by seven, the Longhorns drove all the way to Ohio State’s one-yard line.
On first down, head coach Steve Sarkisian called a run up the middle with Jerrick Gibson, but the Buckeyes’ defense held firm. On second down, Texas tried a toss play to Quintrevion Wisner, but suffered a huge seven-yard loss.
In the end, Texas couldn’t find the end zone. On fourth down, Ohio State’s Jack Sawyer sealed the game with a strip-sack and scoop-and-score on Longhorns quarterback Quinn Ewers. The Buckeyes ended up winning the second semifinal of the College Football Playoff, 28-14.
Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning (16).
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ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit, who was on the call for the game, admitted he was surprised why Sarkisian didn’t turn to backup quarterback Arch Manning on the goal line, who had been effective in short-yardage and red-zone runs throughout the season. Earlier in the contest, Manning even successfully converted a fourth-and-one.
Following the game, Herbstreit spoke to “SportsCenter” host Scott Van Pelt.
“I’m not ever going to second-guess any coach, especially a guy like Sark, who works so hard at that, but I thought you might see the wrinkle of Arch (Manning) come in in that situation with his ability to run,” Herbstriet said. “Maybe a zone read, maybe get them on the edge. Again, I’m not gonna second-guess him but the wide sweep with the Ohio State defense as fast-flowing as they are, led by Caleb Downs, that was a tough one to go to. They tried to catch them napping and they didn’t get it.”
Herbstreit and his broadcast partner, Chris Fowler, recognized how dominant the Buckeyes have been in the red zone this season. That’s why the decision not to bring in Manning to give the defense a different look caught Herbstreit off guard.
“I think Chris (Fowler) and I were kind of getting ahead of how good Ohio State is in the red area, how dominant they’ve been,” Herbstreit added. “The Penn State game stands up in all of our minds, that goal line stand to preserve a victory. As good as Texas is, it’s tough to do.”
ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit.
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Sarkisian discussed his late-game play-calling after the game. For the first-down play, he said, “We didn’t get much movement at all.”
“When we got down to the 1, we went to a heavy package which is Jerrick’s package,” Sarkisian said. “We ran it and we obviously didn’t get much movement at all.”
On the second-down play, which resulted in the seven-yard loss, Sarkisian said, “If you block it all right, you get in the end zone.”
“That’s one of those plays if you block it all right, you get in the end zone,” he added. “We didn’t, and we lose quite a bit of yardage. At that point, you’re kind of stuck behind the 8 ball because we knew we were in four-down territory because of the score of the game.”
