3. The Ohio State offensive line was the real hero
Oh sure, Justin Fields will get all of the love, and the Buckeye defensive front was great, and Trey Sermon had himself a day, but it all started with an Ohio State front five that wore the Clemson defensive line as a hat.
Fields might have been bounced around a bit – okay, a lot – but he also had time to make a sandwich and enjoy every bite before winding up and heaving a 56-yard touchdown pass to Chris Olave.
Sermon was phenomenal, and he certainly epitomized the concept of trucking a defender, but he also had ten-mile-wide holes to bust through.
Taylor Munford at left tackle, Matthew Jones at left guard for Harry Miller, Josh Myers at center, Wyatt Davis at right guard and Nicholas Petit-Frere at right tackle – with a little tweaking and changing on the fly during the game.
That’s the group that paved the way for 254 rushing yards and 5.8 yards per carry, and it gave Fields enough time to make all those gorgeous deep plays happen.
If Ohio State is going to win the national title, that’s the group that’s going to have to do it all over again, and this will have to be said again the night of January 11th …