Buckeyes come up empty handed against Hurricanes

DALLAS – An hour after Miami's 24-14 win over Ohio State in a College Football Playoff quarterfinal game Wednesday night in the Cotton Bowl the confetti from the Hurricanes' post-game celebration was scattered across 20 yards of the end of the field with their name in the end zone and the OSU end of the field was bare. It was just another symbolic reminder that the Buckeyes came into this game with huge expectations but left empty handed. There would be no trip to Arizona for a playoff semifinal. No second consecutive national championship. And no avoiding a sour ending to a season that began with 12 consecutive victories. Miami took an early 14-0 lead, never gave up the lead and secured its victory in the fourth quarter by stopping an OSU drive Ryan Day thought had the potential to give OSU the win, then scoring with 55 seconds left on the clock to put the game out of reach. "It took us a while to get into the rhythm of the game. I thought we did coming out in the second half but by then it was going to take a very, very efficient second half to win the game," Day said. OSU cut Miami's 14-0 halftime lead to 14-7 on its first possession of the second half when Bo Jackson scored on a 1-yard touchdown run at the end of an 11-play, 82-yard drive. Miami answered with a field goal to make it 17-7 before OSU made it 17-14 on a 14-yard touchdown pass from Julian Sayin to Jeremiah Smith with 13:28 left in the game. The next time Ohio State had the ball was the drive Day thought was the one that got away. A holding call put OSU in a second-and-20 situation. Sayin threw an incomplete pass on second down, then completed a pass for -2 yards on third down, forcing a punt. "That was the drive we needed to win the game. When you start the way we did you put yourself at risk of having to be darn near perfect to go win the game. We worked really had to come out of the gates and set a tone in the first half and be ready to go," Day said. "At the end of the day we didn't get it done. I have to take responsibility for not getting these guys ready." Miami sacked Sayin five times three weeks after Indiana sacked him five times in the Big Ten championship game. "We just started executing better in the second half but ultimately we didn't put up enough points and it starts with me," Sayin said. "We have to be better and put up more points than 14." Sayin completed 22 of 35 passes for 287 yards. Smith had 8 catches for 157 yards for OSU (12-2). Carson Beck completed 19 of 26 for 138 yards for Miami (12-2) and Mark Fletcher Jr. rushed for 90 yards on 19 carries. Not much went right for Ohio State in the first two quarters and even when it showed some signs of life in the last five minutes of the first half it still couldn't get on the scoreboard. After a scoreless first quarter, Miami scored two touchdowns in the span of 1 minute, 42 seconds early in the second quarter for its 14-0 lead. The Hurricanes' first score came on a 9-yard touchdown pass from Beck to Fletcher at the end of a 13-play, 83-yard drive that consumed just over eight minutes, beginning at the 6:36 mark of the first quarter and ending at the 13:31 mark of the second quarter. OSU answered with one of its few bright spots in the first half when it responded to Miami's first touchdown with a 59-yard pass from Sayin to Smith but the the next two OSU plays were a minor disaster followed by a major disaster. Sayin was sacked on the next play and on the play after that Miami defensive back Keionte Scott stepped in front of a Sayin pass for an interception and had nothing but open field in front of him on his way to a 72-yard romp for a touchdown. "The play that Scott made on the pick six was a huge part of the game. That flipped the scoreboard fast and put us in a hole," Day said. "At that point you've got to fight yourself out of it and we weren't able to do that." Sayin said, "Great play by him. Obviously you can't have that happen in that situation." Miami sacked Sayin three times in the first half and held OSU to -3 yards rushing in the first half. In the first quarter it out-gained the Buckeyes 128 yards to 9 yards. In the last minute and a half of the second quarter Ohio State abandoned its season-long game plan of huddling, went to an up tempo offense and moved from its own 2-yard line to Miami's 32-yard line. But Jayden Fielding's 49-yard field goal attempt was wide left. Friday's EventsPREP HOCKEYOregon Clay at Findlay, 7 p.m. BOYS BASKETBALLElmwood at Riverdale (BVC)Ada at Arcadia (BVC)Arlington at McComb (BVC)Liberty-Benton at Van Buren (BVC)Pandora-Gilboa at Vanlue (BVC)Columbus Grove at Lima BathHilltop at North Baltimore