That's the question on everyone's mind after watching No. 4 Texas erase a 20-point deficit against No. 1 Ohio State in the fourth quarter. After looking dead in the water for three quarters, the Longhorns pulled out an improbable 24-23 victory. So, did Ohio State choke?
Or did Texas simply will its way back into the game? It was a little bit of both. The Buckeyes failed to ice the game because their offense looked anemic after taking a 23-3 lead.
The Longhorns defense certainly deserves some credit there, but Ohio State looked out of sync in the final 30 minutes. On the other side, the first half went as poorly as it could have for Arch Manning and the Texas offense. Faced with that adversity and a three-score hole, Manning and the Horns' offensive weapons stepped up and made key plays with the game on the line.
Let's dive into exactly how Texas managed to pull off the fourth-largest comeback in team history. There will be some criticism of Arthur Smith's conservative play-calling in the second half, and that is fair to a degree, but the bigger issue was Ohio State's inability to run the ball throughout the game. The Buckeyes ran the ball 31 times for 94 yards, and the lack of a ground game came back to bite them in a number of ways.
The first is that it cost Ohio State points on at least two occasions. 13:29 -- 1Q: Nine-yard loss put Ohio State behind the chains at the Texas 4-yard line.13:23 -- 2Q: One-yard gain on fourth-and-2 at the Texas 13-yard line. Ohio State could've survived coming up short in those situations if it had drained more clock after taking a 20-point lead. Instead, the Buckeyes used up just 2:35 in their two drives immediately succeeding Connor Hawkins' field goal with 8:09 left in the third quarter.
In that span, Ohio State rushed three times for seven yards. The Longhorns' front seven clogged up running lanes all night. The Buckeyes' longest run of the game was 11 yards from Bo Jackson, and no other player had a run of more than eight yards.
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