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Jan. 7—Friday night’s College Football Playoff semifinal between Ohio State and Texas in the Cotton Bowl obviously is the most important football game ever between those two schools.
But every time the Buckeyes and the Longhorns have matched up on the field it has been a big game.
Every one of them was a game that had the national spotlight on it. And, even when it was early in the season, it had implications for rankings and the national championship.
When Texas played at OSU in 2005, which was the first time these two legendary football programs played against each other, the Longhorns came into the early September game ranked No. 2 and the Buckeyes were No. 4.
Texas won 25-22 when Vince Young threw a touchdown pass with 2 1/2 minutes to play. The Longhorns went on to win the national championship. The loss made OSU a long shot to play for the national championship and a loss to Penn State a few weeks later definitely ended its slim national title hopes.
The next year No. 1 Ohio State went to No. 2 Texas for another early September game and won 24-7 at Darrell K Royal Stadium, where the Longhorns had won 36 of their last 37 home games.
Ohio State kept winning after that game until the BCS national championship game where it was dominated 41-14 by Florida, coached by Urban Meyer.
In the 2009 Fiesta Bowl, Texas felt like it had something to prove. The Longhorns and Oklahoma each had one loss and they had beaten the Sooners. But Oklahoma was picked to play Florida for the BCS championship and Texas was relegated to the Fiesta Bowl.
Texas’ hope was that it could roll up a big score on OSU and pass the winner of the Oklahoma-Florida game in the Associated Press poll and claim a share of the national championship.
Texas got a win, 24-21, but it wasn’t enough to let them jump to the top of the rankings.
Ohio State comes into…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/jim-naveau-ohio-states-playoff-003300398.html
Author : The Lima News, Ohio
Publish date : 2025-01-08 00:33:00
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