Oregon won the toss, took the ball, and for the next 2:39 it owned the Ohio State Buckeyes, driving 75 yards in 11 plays to take a 7-0 lead.
Then Duck season ended. Oh sure, they had a good game, but not compared to the Buckeyes, who had a great game because they were just as fast and much bigger and stronger.
The Buckeyes looked like a great SEC team. Ohio State looked like Florida back when Urban Meyer was coaching the Gators, before the pressure became so intense that he thought he was having a heart attack, but apparently it was just an Ambien nightmare.
Still, he left Florida to spend more time with his family.
After a year -- during which he was gone every weekend for his broadcasting gig -- he took the Ohio State job that had come under heavy fire from the NCAA. A band of Buckeyes had been trading their trinkets for tattoos, which was an NCAA violation and enough to eventually get Coach Jim Tressel fired (he wasn't honest with his bosses) but not enough to keep Buckeyes players from participating against Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl.
That's the same Jim Tressel who is still under an NCAA show-cause penalty for any school that wants to hire him as a football coach, and the same one who will be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame along with Brian Bosworth and some deserving guys.
In three seasons at Ohio State, Meyer has an unbelievable record of 38-3 (.926 winning percentage).
He was 65-15 (.815) at Florida, where he won his first two national championships. His first one was a 41-14 beatdown of Ohio State and started the seven-year reign of the SEC winning national championships.
What he did Monday night was make a statement. The Buckeyes are the team to beat now, and maybe in the future, because he can recruit nationally. A dynasty is born.
No, that isn't going to make my SEC friends happy, but look at the facts, which in this case are the stats.
Start with third-down efficiency. The Buckeyes converted 8 of 15 attempts, but that is misleading because four of the seven times they failed to convert they went for it on fourth down and converted every one of them.
Which helped them have possession for 37:29.
They overcame four turnovers to win 42-20, which is an aggravating score because Oregon was Urbanized when the Buckeyes' final touchdown came with just 28 seconds to play and it wasn't by some unknown third-team walk-on player from Dayton.
Starter Ezekiel Elliott got it on a 1-yard plunge. Prior to that carry, the superb running back had 35 carries for 246 yards and 3 touchdowns. His stats did not need padding.
Ohio State had long since proved it was the superior team, although too much was made about third-string quarterback Cardale Jones. He was third string because Ohio State has two other quarterbacks with Heisman Trophy potential. Jones could start for about 90 percent of the major colleges in the country.
Jones passed for 242 yards and ran for 38 yards. He was instrumental in almost every third down conversion, but mainly he had a great offensive line.
The game was supposed to be about Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota, the Oregon quarterback who had a great game but didn't have the weapons that Jones did. The Buckeyes outgained the Ducks 296 yards to 132 on the ground.
So the best team won, and in doing so totally proved that the College Football Playoff selection committee -- headed by Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long -- was right to include Ohio State in its Final Four.
Folks from TCU might want to argue that, but the Horned Frogs' argument suffered when Baylor, which handed TCU its only loss of the season, lost to Michigan State in the Cotton Bowl.
Ohio State is the undisputed heavyweight champion of college football.
Sports on 01/14/2015