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Peach Bowl Prep: Buckeyes v ND


Josh Hancher
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The regular season is truly over with the Heisman Ceremony and Army/Navy game played.  It's onto the Bowl Season.  Some of you may have been able to watch Ohio State games, but some of us were able to only get the highlights and narrative from our Peach Bowl opponents. @Jon Tweets Sportsand @Graham Coffeywill have several shows and article to get you ready and here a statistical breakdown of their matchup with Notre Dame from week 1.

This game was the #1 game the opening weekend with the #5 Fighting Irish visiting the #2 Buckeyes at Ohio Stadium.  Marcus Freeman was coaching his first game after being hired full time. The Irish finished 5th in the CFP Rankings in 2021 and had aspirations of another Playoff birth.  Ohio State was ranked behind Alabama and returned Heisman finalist CJ Stroud and this game was a resume builder for both programs. Despite those narratives, Vegas opened the game at 14.5 and it closed at 17.5.  Ohio State were heavy favorites.

ND jumped out with a FG drive answer with an OSU TD in the first quarter.  ND made it 10-7 where the score stayed until the 4th when the Buckeyes offense just wore down the ND Defense for a 21-10 win.  Much was expected of the Stroud led offense, but the passing attack was fairly inefficient but for a few explosive plays.  The OSU pass offense had just a 34% success rate and 6 yards per attempt.  The running game performed very well with 64% success and 5.6 YPC.  TreVeyon Henderson and Milan Williams had 175 combined yards on 29 attempts.

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Ryan Day made the comment in Big Ten media days that he expected to not only have an elite offense but at least a top ten defense, and while the ND offense wasn't the best one they would face, it was held to 31% success rate and harassed QB Buchner all night to just 10 completions on 18 attempts and only TE Michael Mayer getting more than one reception.

All eyes are on Jaxon Smith-Njigba who was the leading returning pass catcher on an offense that put two WR in the 1st round of the 2021 NFL Draft.  While he was held to just 3 yards on 2 catches, Emeka Egbuka had a coming out party with 9 catches for 90 yards and a TD.

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Here is a compressed video you can watch to actually see this game unfold.  Give it a watch and hit us up with any thing that jumps out at you.  The Dawgs Central Crew will break downs this game soon.

 

Ohio State got a breather the following two games with Arkansas State and Toledo before heading into the Big 10 Schedule.  Those games really allowed Stroud and his young pass catchers to find their rhythm. Harrison would total almost 300 yards and catch 5 TDs in their out of conference games.Screen Shot 2022-12-07 at 2.06.59 PM.pngScreen Shot 2022-12-07 at 2.06.39 PM.pngScreen Shot 2022-12-07 at 2.50.52 PM.pngScreen Shot 2022-12-07 at 2.53.46 PM.png

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