1. Underdog Mentality
I said it in 2015 and I'll say it again here. This Ohio State team plays like a different animal when the whole world counts them out. By my count, the Buckeyes haven't lost a game in which they were a big underdog since the game that will not be named closed out the 2011 regular season. They haven't lost much at all, and most of the losses revealed some lack of focus. The Buckeyes aren't going to turtle this away like they did against Michigan State in 2015, and they aren't going to get punked and roll over like they did against Iowa in 2017 or Purdue in 2018. Especially when they have such delicious bulletin board material to work with. Some of it writes itself: Alabama had the Heisman winner, three finalists overall, and swept the offensive awards (other than TE). Notably, the Tide OL won the Joe Moore award, an award for which the slobs were not even finalists. You look at the way the Buckeye O-line has played in their last three games and tell me if they're lacking in skill or motivation. Add to that the random Internet idiots and specific Internet idiots (hi, baby girl Saban) crowing about how Ohio State is trying to duck this game and how they shouldn't have made the Playoff in the first place. Even Nick himself had the Buckeyes at #5 in his final ballot. If Ohio State comes out fully focused and locked in, nobody is beating them.
2. So Fresh and So Clean, Clean
We've all had the pleasure of hearing nonstop over the last month or so (or the whole season) that a team that plays 6 regular season games doesn't belong in the Playoff. The Buckeyes flattened the last chump who put his coaches' poll ballot where his mouth was, but Dabo did have a point. You play fewer games, you amass fewer injuries. True, the Buckeyes lost nickel corner Cameron Brown in their win over Penn State, but Alabama lost a receiver who might be better than the Heisman winner (Jaylen Waddle) and the All-American anchor of what is apparently the nation's best O-line (Landon Dickerson), and oh yeah, their nickel corner (Malachi Moore). Who knows which of these guys, if any, will play, but Dickerson at least seems to be out for Monday's game. That could be a huge problem going against a Buckeye D-line that lived in the backfield and made life miserable for Trevor Lawrence in New Orleans. At least Lawrence could use his mobility to escape the onslaught. The same can't be said for another Playoff QB...
3. Stonewall Mac
Three of the four starting quarterbacks in this year's Playoff could plausibly be described as dual threats (to varying degrees: Fields > Lawrence > Book). The fourth is definitively not so. To be fair, he finished third in the Heisman voting and probably would have won if Devonta's incredible season didn't siphon off most of his votes, but he is vulnerable to pressure. Mr. Jones is sitting on net +3 yards rushing on the year, and took multiple negative plays against each of Florida and Georgia. And now he faces the best pass rushing D-line he'll see all year, with a few great blitzing linebackers thrown in the mix. Lawrence was excellent at hitting his checkdown man while falling or sprinting backwards; can Mac do the same?
4.
Après Sark, le Deluge
It's tough to work two jobs at the same time, especially when both are the all-world consuming vocations of big time top level college football coaching. As you've probably heard, Alabama OC Steve Sarkisian will be coaching the Texas Longhorns as soon as this game is over, and he's taking Alabama OL coach Kyle Flood with him. Now, Bama can churn through top level coordinators like nobody else (who's going to refuse a call from Nick Saban?), but for the moment the Tide have an offensive staff with one foot out the door and knowing full well that they have their work cut out for them in Austin. If they're not on their A game in their swan song, and the Crimson juggernaut starts to look mortal, Alabama could be in serious trouble. Also, don't forget, Sark has been here before, albeit with the script flipped. When Lane Kiffin left just before the end of the 2016 season to go to Florida Atlantic, Sark jumped into the acting OC role for the national championship against Clemson. The Tide did not win that game. The Tide didn't win the 2018 national championship either, after OC Mike Locksley was hired away by the Maryland Terrapins prior to the Playoff but coached through Bama's blowout loss in the championship. Could this be a trend?
5. Games on Film
Dabo famously quipped that Ohio State would be a quick film study, as the Tigers would only need to watch 6 games worth as compared to a normal 12 game season. As it turns out, Clemson might've appreciated a few more opportunities to study the Buckeyes before they got run out of the Superdome. Ryan Day remains an intuitively excellent offensive coach, and while the Buckeye bag of tricks is likely significantly emptier after the Sugar Bowl, I expect Alabama to be left guessing on Monday more than normal. Ohio State, in contrast, has a full season's worth of Alabama game film to analyze. Throw in the fact that Ohio State has been starting all sorts of varied lineups as the year has gone on, and the Buckeyes may have an advantage in the opponent analysis department.
6. Weaksauce D
Huh? you say. Alabama has a weaksauce defense? The Tide have the best Power 5 defense outside of the Big Ten West! They've held seven of their last eight opponents below 20 points! Yes, these are all true, but there's an inconvenient truth regarding these dominating defensive performances: Alabama has been playing bad offenses. Notre Dame, Texas A&M, Georgia, and LSU aren't awful, but the only two real offenses Alabama has faced this year were Florida and Ole Miss, and the Tide failed miserably against both of them. Ole Miss hit Alabama with a balanced attack and racked up 647 yards, while Florida managed to stay within a touchdown against the Tide (and might have won without their bonkers end-of-half clock management) despite being unable to do anything on the ground. That's good news for a Buckeye team that just got finished lighting up a very good Clemson secondary and have been basically running the ball at will ever since Trey Sermon took over for Master Teague. The Silver Bullets' struggles have been well documented, but there's no reason not to expect Ohio State's offense to give Bama fits as well.
7. Handling the ACC
What do Clemson and Alabama have in common? Both manhandled Notre Dame at the end of the season, first the Tigers, then the Tide. Alabama slowly strangled the Domers to death after jumping out to a quick lead, whereas Clemson kept pounding on the Irish throughout the game. Could these games provide a clue as to what could happen on Monday? Well, Ohio State just got done playing one of the teams that crushed the Irish this season, and they gave the victor a lovely transitive walloping. If Alabama played Notre Dame about as well as Clemson did, what does that mean for their chances against the Buckeyes on Monday?
8. Heismen Curse
Heisman winners have been hit-or-miss in postseason games over the years. I don't need to remind you that Ohio State's own Archie Griffin and Troy Smith missed out on national championships after winning the award. Three of the last five Heisman winners to play for the title have come up short (Marcus Mariota, Baker Mayfield, and Kyler Murray), in contrast to the unflappable Heisman winners Joe Burrow and...Alabama's Derrick Henry (hmm). Devonta Smith seems like a humble guy and a real dude overall, and the Heisman celebration tour is decidedly more muted than in prior years, but will his performance suffer? And what of the other finalists? I mentioned in my list of reasons Alabama will win that the Tide have the first trio of top 5 Heisman finishers since 1946 Army, and that the Black Knights won the title that year. Well, I misled you a little. 1946 Army did go 9-0-1, and they did win a share of a title, but that one tie? That was a scoreless tie against Notre Dame, who also went 9-0-1 and won the consensus title that year.
9. Revenge Factor
Revenge factor? Didn't Ohio State win the last time these two teams met? And wasn't that six years ago, when none of the current players were playing for either of these teams? Yes, but there happens to be a player on Ohio State's roster that has seen the Tide before: Justin Fields. Fields, of course, was not the starting QB for the 2018 Georgia Bulldogs that faced Alabama in the SEC Championship (that was Jake Fromm for some unfathomable reason), but he did see some action in that game, tossing one incomplete pass and running the ball three times. You may remember that awful fake punt that essentially gifted the game to the Tide late. Yup, that was Fields (not his fault the play sucked, though). Thankfully, the Ohio State offensive planners are nowhere near the train wreck that is Kirby Smart's staff and Justin should be able to make some magic to avenge a prior lost Playoff spot.
10. As Gold Is Tested by Fire
OK, so neither of these teams has found themselves in a great deal of trouble on the field this season. Alabama had a bit of a problem stopping Ole Miss for two and a half quarters and saw Florida pull within 6 points of a victory late in the SEC title game, and they trailed at half against Georgia, but that was about it. Ohio State, likewise, gave Indiana the ball with a chance to tie or take the lead late, and took 3 quarters to figure out to run the dang ball against Northwestern, but was otherwise never seriously threatened. Off the field, however, it's been a different story. The Buckeyes have seen their schedule modified, cancelled, uncancelled and remodified, cut nearly in half by week-to-week cancellations, become ineligible for the B1G Championship, become re-eligible for the B1G Championship just in time to go, and have generally waited on pins and needles week after week to see whether each Saturday's matchup would be cancelled at the last minute. It must have been exhausting. But the Buckeyes are still standing, still undefeated, just played their best game of the season, and are cleared to play one more. The last two Buckeye national champions have overcome tremendous adversity, whether on or off the field, to claim their crowns. The ones who made it look easy (1996, 1998, 2006, 2019) have always come up just short.
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