Ohio State’s national title defense begins in Texas.
The Buckeyes are playing in the Cotton Bowl for the third consecutive season. Ohio State ends the 2023 season there against Missouri after missing the final four-team College Football Playoff game. A year ago, the Buckeyes defeated Texas in the semifinals to advance to the national championship game.
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[More CFP: Oregon vs. Texas Tech | Indiana vs. Alabama | Georgia vs. Ole Miss]
Cotton Bowl: No. 2 Ohio State vs. No. 10 Miami
How did these teams get here?
Ohio State (12-1): It’s a bit surprising that Ohio State didn’t make the Orange Bowl, having traveled to the Dallas-Fort Worth Mets the past two seasons. But the Buckeyes at least avoided another game against a Texas team. If they hadn’t lost to Indiana in the Big Ten Championship Game, they probably would have been in Pasadena.
After going undefeated in the regular season, including wins over Texas and Michigan State — the Ohio State win became Sherron Moore’s final game as Michigan coach after the Wolverines gave Ryan Day so much trouble — the Buckeyes entered the conference championship game as one of only two undefeated teams in college football. But Indiana won the hard-fought battle 13-10, earning a No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff and a trip to the Rose Bowl.
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Miami (11-2): “Fighting” is probably a fair word to describe what happened on Dec. 20 in College Station. The Hurricanes and Aggies combined for 13 points and Miami won 10-3, with the game’s only touchdown coming on a Malachi Toney rush pass with less than two minutes remaining.
Miami can now boast a win over Notre Dame and another team that beat the Irish as they enter the College Football Playoff in the final set of rankings. It was a very convincing way for the committee to justify its playoff decision to put Miami over Notre Dame … even if it waited too long to make the change.
How QB stacks up
Ohio State’s Julian Sayin is still trying to break the FBS completion percentage record. Although Sain hasn’t completed better than 75 percent of his passes in each of the past four games, he still has a 78.4 percent pass completion rate in 2025. The record is 77.45%, set by Oregon State’s Bo Nix in 2023.
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Sain had an interception in each of the past two games, both of which came early in the game. That game against Michigan ultimately didn’t matter, but the Indians turned Sain’s Big Ten Championship Game pick into a field goal in a three-point game.
However, the Heisman finalist has thrown just six picks all season, and he’s thrown at least one touchdown in each of the Buckeyes’ 13 games this season.
After a brutal three-game stretch in the middle of the season, Carson Baker threw just one pick in Miami’s final five games. Baker threw four interceptions in Miami’s home loss to Louisville and two picks in the Hurricanes’ road loss to Southern Methodist University. Since then, he’s thrown 12 touchdowns and one interception in those five games while completing at least 70 percent of his passes. However, things were not looking good against A&M. Baker went 14-for-20 for 103 yards, bringing Toney glory.
Since his breakout season at Georgia in 2023, Baker has thrown for over 3,000 yards in each of the last three seasons. Can he avoid multiple turnovers against Ohio State’s ferocious defense?
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Players to watch
Miami running back Mark Fletcher Jr.: The junior took over late in the fourth quarter against the Aggies. On the Heat’s final drive of the game, he carried the ball five times in a row – including a 56-yard rush to open the possession – and finished with 17 carries for 172 yards and a touchdown. Because of the aggressiveness of the Texas A&M defensive line, Fletcher always found room to run up the middle. Will he see the same room against Ohio State?
In 2025, the Buckeyes gave up 100 or more yards on the ground just three times. And teams often need a lot of passing to get there. Opponents have averaged 2.8 yards rushing against Ohio State this season, and the three teams that have surpassed the 100-yard mark (Texas, Michigan and Indiana) have combined for 384 yards on 95 carries.
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The win over A&M was Fletcher’s fourth 100-yard game of the season and first since he rushed for 106 yards and three scores on 23 carries against Stanford in late October.
Ohio State WR Carnell Tate: He’s the obvious choice here considering how much defenders have to look at Jeremy Smith. Smith finished sixth in the Heisman voting, catching 80 passes for 1,086 yards and 11 scores in 12 games. He will receive a lot of attention from the Miami secondary.
But Tate is our pick because of his ability to back up just about every defense in college football. Tate’s ability to make long touchdown catches from just about anywhere on the field forces defenses not to spin too much toward Smith.
Miami looked good in the first round against A&M’s Mario Craver and KC Concepcion, but Ohio State’s passing attack is powered by better receivers and a better quarterback and a more vertical passing game.
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The key to the game
Miami’s defensive front took over in the second half of the win over A&M. The Hurricanes were sacked a total of 7 times, Rueben Bain had 3 sacks, Keionte Scott had 2 sacks, and Akheem Mesidor had 1.5 sacks.
Can they handle that kind of pressure against Ohio State? This is Miami’s best chance to turn things around. Sain was sacked five times in the Big Ten title game loss to Indiana. Coming into that game, he had been sacked just six times all season. It’s no coincidence that the number of sacks allowed correlates with Ohio State’s worst offensive performance of the season since Week 1. If Sain can’t get comfortable, Miami could wreak havoc.
However, the Hurricanes also had to score. Ohio State hasn’t allowed an opponent more than 16 points all season, and only five teams have scored more than 10 points. Miami averaged 5.7 yards per carry against the Aggies but had three missed field goals and a fumble. The margin for error will be significantly less on Wednesday night.
