Ohio State vs. Miami: College Football Playoff players to watch, key to the Cotton Bowl

December 29, 2025 Admin

Ohio State’s national title defense begins in Texas.

The Buckeyes are playing in the Cotton Bowl for the third straight season. At the end of the 2023 season, Ohio State played Missouri there after missing the final four-team College Football Playoff. A year ago, the Buckeyes beat Texas in the semifinals to advance to the national title game.

[More: Oregon vs. Texas Tech | Indiana vs. Alabama | Georgia vs. Ole Miss]

Cotton Bowl: No. 2 Ohio State vs. No. 10 Miami

How these teams got here

Ohio State (12-1): It was slightly surprising Ohio State didn’t get placed in the Orange Bowl given the last two seasons included trips to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. But the Buckeyes at least avoided another game against a team from Texas. And they could be in Pasadena if it wasn’t for their Big Ten title game loss to Indiana.

After an undefeated regular season that included wins over Texas and Michigan — after the Wolverines had given Ryan Day so much trouble, an Ohio State victory turned out to be Sherrone Moore’s last game as Michigan’s coach — the Buckeyes entered the conference title game as one of just two undefeated teams in college football. But Indiana won the slugfest 13-10 to earn the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff and the trip to the Rose Bowl.

Miami (11-2): It’s probably fair to also use the term slugfest to describe what took place in College Station on Dec. 20. The Hurricanes and Aggies combined for 13 points in Miami’s 10-3 victory and the only touchdown of the game came with less than two minutes to go when Malachi Toney scored on a pop pass jet sweep.

As they snuck into the College Football Playoff in the final set of rankings, Miami can now boast wins over Notre Dame and the other team that beat the Irish. That’s a pretty convincing way for the committee to justify its decision to put Miami in the playoff over Notre Dame … even if it waited way too long to make the switch.

How the QBs stack up

Ohio State’s Julian Sayin is still on pace to break the FBS record for completion percentage. Despite not completing more than 75% of his passes in each of the last four games, Sayin is still completing 78.4% of his throws in 2025. The record is 77.45% and was set in 2023 by Oregon’s Bo Nix.

Sayin has tossed an interception in each of his last two games and both of those have come early in the contest. The one against Michigan ultimately didn’t matter, but the Hoosiers turned Sayin’s Big Ten title game pick into a field goal in what was a three-point game.

The Heisman finalist has thrown just six picks all season, however, and he’s thrown at least one touchdown in each of the Buckeyes’ 13 games this season.

Carson Beck has thrown just one pick in Miami’s last five games after a brutal three game stretch in the middle of the season. Beck threw four interceptions in Miami’s home loss to Louisville and two picks in the Hurricanes’ road loss at SMU. Since then, he’s thrown 12 touchdowns and that one interception while completing at least 70% of his throws in those five games. Against A&M, it wasn’t pretty, though. Beck was just 14-of-20 for 103 yards and that glorified handoff to Toney.

Beck has now thrown for over 3,000 yards in each of the past three seasons dating back to his breakout 2023 season at Georgia. Can he avoid a multi-turnover game against Ohio State’s ferocious defense?

Players to watch

Miami RB Mark Fletcher Jr.: The junior took over late in the fourth quarter against the Aggies. He carried the ball on five straight plays on Miami’s final drive of the game — including a 56-yard run to open the possession — and finished with 17 carries for 172 yards and a TD. Fletcher consistently found room running up the middle thanks to the aggressiveness of Texas A&M’s defensive line. Will he see that same room against Ohio State?

The Buckeyes have given up 100 or more yards on the ground just three times in 2025. And it typically takes teams a lot of carries to get to that mark. Opponents average 2.8 yards a rush against Ohio State this season and the three teams that broke the 100-yard mark (Texas, Michigan and Indiana) combined to rush for 384 yards on 95 carries.

The win over A&M was Fletcher’s fourth 100-yard game of the season and his first since he had 23 carries for 106 yards and three scores against Stanford in late October.

Ohio State WR Carnell Tate: Jeremiah Smith was the obvious choice here given the attention that defenses have to pay to him. Smith finished sixth in the Heisman voting with 80 catches for 1,086 yards and 11 scores over 12 games. He’s going to get a lot of attention from the Miami secondary.

But Tate is our pick here given his ability to get behind nearly every defense in college football. Tate’s ability to make a long touchdown catch from nearly anywhere on the field forces defenses to not rotate too much toward Smith.

Miami did a great job against A&M’s Mario Craver and KC Concepcion in the first round, but Ohio State’s passing offense is powered by even better receivers and a better quarterback with a much more vertical passing game.

Key to the game

Miami’s defensive front took over in the second half of the win over A&M. The Hurricanes had seven sacks as Rueben Bain had three, Keionte Scott had two and Akheem Mesidor had 1.5.

Can they get that type of pressure against Ohio State? That’s Miami’s best chance of pulling the upset. Sayin was sacked five times in the Big Ten title game loss to Indiana. Entering that game he had been sacked just six times all season. It’s not a coincidence that the number of sacks allowed correlated with Ohio State’s worst offensive performance of the season since Week 1. If Sayin can’t get comfortable, Miami can wreak havoc.

However, the Hurricanes have to score too. Ohio State hasn’t given up more than 16 points to an opponent all season and just five teams have scored 10 or more points. Miami averaged 5.7 yards per play against the Aggies but had three missed field goals and a turnover. There will be far, far less margin for error on Wednesday night.

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