Ohio State Not Focused LSU’s Passing Success Against Georgia
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Ohio State fans tend to point to the 502 passing yards that LSU put up against Georgia in the SEC Championship Game earlier this month as to why the Buckeyes will find success through the air in Saturday’s Peach Bowl, but they also tend to forget the Bulldogs still beat the Tigers, 50-30.
“You look at those stats, but the result was that they won the game by 20,” offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson said on Tuesday. “That wasn’t necessarily the formula to win the game. We’ll have to make plays in both phases, on third-down conversions, short-yardage conversions, red-zone conversions.
“You look at the history of championship football games, there’s not a lot of 9-7 or 13-10 ballgames … It’s not just about yards passing and yard running, we’ve got to find a way to get the ball in the end zone if we want a chance to win this game.”
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Sure, it was the most passing yards given up by Georgia under seventh-year head coach Kirby Smart. But a majority of those yards came after halftime, when LSU was trailing by 25 points and needed to throw the ball to have any hope of overcoming that deficit.
The Bulldogs’ defensive forced four punts, blocked a field goal and returned it for a touchdown and held the Tigers to 10 points when the game was on the line in the first half, meanwhile.
“They’re not going to let us drop back and do what we want to do,” quarterback C.J. Stroud said. “I know that’s probably what the outside world thinks is that since LSU got to throw the ball against them really well that we’ll just go out there and do it.
“I’m pretty sure they’ll have a plan for that, and we’ll have to be on our game better than they are. That was good for LSU, but we’ve got to go play Buckeye football and make sure that happens on Saturday for us.”
That said, there’s no denying Ohio State’s offense is more talented than LSU’s, the Buckeyes averaged 44.5 points and 492.7 yards per game behind Stroud, a two-time Heisman finalist, and a pair of 1,000-yard wide receivers in unanimous All-American Marvin Harrison Jr. and Emeka Egbuka.
“Obviously LSU did what they did and other teams like Missouri gave them a good battle, but we have to go out there and play our game,” Harrison said. “We have confidence in ourselves that we’re going to make things work and go out there and compete.
“I don’t think we’re going to take too much from other teams. Obviously have to watch the film and see how other teams succeeded, but (we have to) just worry about ourselves and know what we can do.”
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