ARLINGTON, Texas — For some Ohio State players, there is still a sense they haven’t really done anything yet.
Yes, even after the Buckeyes have already won twice this postseason to get into Friday night’s College Football Playoff semifinal against Texas in the Cotton Bowl.
“Absolutely. I have been here for four years, and I have absolutely no hardware to show for it,” Ohio State receiver Emeka Egbuka said. “That’s really on the forefront of our minds.”
While the Buckeyes are the only program to appear in four of the last six editions of the College Football Playoff (counting this one and all since Ryan Day became head coach) and won four consecutive Big Ten titles from 2017-20 before Egbuka and most of the current players arrived, Ohio State’s most recent football national championship came 10 years ago. That was the first season of the CFP (which was a four-team event from that year through last season), and they won the title at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, the home of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys.
It’s also the same venue where the eighth-seeded Buckeyes (12-2) are about to face the fifth-seeded Longhorns (13-2) as Texas gets to play in its home state and just some 200 miles from its Austin campus. The winner Friday night, with ESPN televising the 7:30 p.m. Eastern matchup, advances to the national title game on Jan. 20 at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium — where Texas hopes to play for the third time this season after losing the Southeastern Conference title game to Georgia there a month ago, then beating fourth-seeded Arizona State 39-31 in double overtime in the Peach Bowl quarterfinal on New Year’s Day.