LOS ANGELES — The nightmare replays, every so often, in Will Howard’s mind. Too often.
He can’t escape it. He doesn’t want to escape it. The video, from the failures of a cold October night in Eugene, has played in Ohio State’s facility on their trip to the Rose Bowl this week. Howard, the Buckeyes’ senior quarterback, already has it seared into his synapses from months before, dissecting the footage of that loss to Oregon over and over and over again during the bye week that followed.
The thought persisted, amid the masochism: What could I have done better?
The Buckeyes were trailing 32-31 with the ball at Oregon’s 38-yard-line. Five seconds left. Howard pump-faked, and took off, time waning to stop the clock for a game-winning field goal try. 30-yard-line. One second. He slid, too late. The clock hit 0:00, and the field at Autzen Stadium was overrun with rampaging Ducks, Howard clutching his gray helmet in his hands.
“I said, the moment we were walking off that field, ‘We’re going to see these guys again,’ whether it was in the Big Ten (championship game) or here,” Howard told reporters on Saturday.
“And here we are, man.”
Life, as Howard implored multiple times, rarely grants second chances. And yet most around the game could have seen this second chance coming, the rematch of a college football season blossoming with the New Year’s Day sunset over the San Gabriel Mountains: No. 1 Oregon (13-0 overall, 9-0 Big Ten) against eighth-seeded Ohio State (11-2, 7-2) at the Rose Bowl in what sets up as an epic College Football Playoff quarterfinal.
“This is going to be the game of the century,” receiver Tez Johnson said Monday at Rose Bowl media availability. “I’ma tell you right now – this is gonna be a game that everyone’s gonna remember.”
For the Buckeyes and Howard, it’s a chance at redemption, a program that has hit a couple of speedbumps in 2024 getting another crack at an October loss to Oregon that Ohio State linebacker Cody Simon called a “dark spot.” For the undefeated Ducks and fast-rising head coach Dan Lanning, it’s a chance to stamp their imprint on the Big Ten, rolling into the conference with deep pockets and deep talent and a giant inflatable Oregon Duck floating on the White River during July’s Big Ten media days in Indianapolis.
The matchup, itself, comes to Pasadena as a marker of unprecedented times in college athletics. Oregon and Ohio State have both marched at the forefront of the ever-changing NIL landscape; Ohio State’s athletic director Ross Bjork revealing this summer Buckeye football players had received more than $20 million in 2023, and the strength of Oregon’s Phil-Knight-backed donor collective has drawn plenty of jealousy from programs across the nation. Both programs, too, are led by transfer quarterbacks: Ohio State’s Howard (coming from Kansas State) and Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel (Oklahoma).
And the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff has suddenly brought a former Pac-12 program and a longtime Big Ten staple back for a new-era version of the Rose Bowl.
“Very unique situation, in that we’re both now in the Big Ten,” Buckeyes coach Ryan Day said Tuesday. “But you look back on the history of the Big Ten and the Pac-12, and the matchups that have been before, I think it makes it even more special, this game.”
Gabriel played near-flawlessly in that October victory over Ohio State, throwing for 341 yards and totaling three touchdowns. The lefty Heisman Trophy finalist will look for a similar result in leading a high-powered offense Wednesday, a bevy of weapons at the Ducks’ disposal: running back Jordan James has run for 1,253 yards and 15 touchdowns, and outspoken receiver Johnson has 866 yards and 10 touchdowns.
The Buckeyes, meanwhile, have shown an ability for much of the season to pop back up after some gut-punches. After that one-point loss to Oregon, in which their defense was shredded for 496 total yards, Ohio State hasn’t given up as much as 20 points in seven games since. And after their offense fell flat in a 13-10 home loss to rival Michigan on Nov. 30, Howard and the Buckeyes responded by torching Tennessee, 42-10, in the opening round of the CFP, as true freshman receiver Jeremiah Smith continued a ridiculous season with 103 yards and two touchdowns.
Smith, too, will carry his own shred of motivation into Wednesday, as he was called for a costly pass interference penalty that pushed Ohio State back on the play before Howard’s late slide.
“I think about that call, probably, every day,” said Smith, who has totaled 1,037 yards and 12 touchdowns in 2024.
The weight of Wednesday’s matchup, though, will likely fall most of all on Howard, the quarterback who has waited for months to exorcise his nightmare.
“I think, as the season’s gone on, you’ve seen him grow week-in and week-out,” Day said Tuesday, of Howard. “But ultimately, it’s going to come down to his leadership in this game.”
What: College Football Playoff quarterfinal
When: Wednesday, 2 p.m.
Where: Rose Bowl, Pasadena
Line: Ohio State is favored by 2½ points.
Series record: Ohio State leads 9-2
TV/radio: ESPN, ESPNU, 830 AM
