The Ohio State Buckeyes are preparing to face the Oregon Ducks in the Rose Bowl in what they hope will serve as some desirable revenge.

Remember: Oregon defeated Ohio State back in Week 7, handing the Buckeyes their first loss of the season. The Ducks would go on to go undefeated. Ohio State went 10-2 (now 11-2 thanks to its win over the Tennessee Volunteers).

The first meeting between the two teams was close, with Oregon emerging with a 32-21 victory. For on of the only times this season, the Buckeyes’ defense looked vulnerable.

But there was one player in particular who looked particularly exposed: cornerback Denzel Burke.

Burke entered the season widely considered one of the best cornerbacks in the country and was also viewed as a potential first-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.

However, his performance against the Ducks altered his fate.

Burke surrendered eight catches for 179 yards and was burned for a couple of touchdowns in Ohio State’s loss, and since then, the 22-year-old has not quite looked the same.

His draft stock has plummeted, and his confidence also appears to have been adversely affected.

And it all started in Eugene, Or. back in October.

Can Burke right the ship and come through with a bounceback showing against the top-ranked eam in the country?

The Buckeyes will need Burke. That’s for sure. After all, Oregon boasts one of the most explosive offenses in the country, and that’s due much in part to the Ducks’ high-octane aerial attack led by quarterback Dillon Gabriel.

Not only that, but Burke needs it for himself. A strong outing versus the Ducks would go a long way in gaining the attention of NFL scouts once again, and it could serve as a springboard for Burke the remainder of the College Football Playoff.

Burke has lost a bit of his shine since that disastrous performance at Oregon. If there is any Ohio State player who desperately needs revenge on New Year’s Day, it’s Burke.

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Kentucky dropped to No. 61 in the latest KenPom defensive efficiency ratings after allowing Ohio State to score 85 points on 56.6 percent shooting overall and 68.4 percent from two. It was an abysmal effort on that end of the floor — and that’s with the Buckeyes going just 4-15 from three after entering the matchup shooting 41 percent from deep as one of the best in college basketball.

Mark Pope said the team’s magic number to open the season was 39 percent, hoping to hold teams to that hit rate defensively throughout the year. After hitting that mark in the first six games of the year, the Wildcats have done it just once in the last six. They’ve regressed in a major way and the staff is now looking for answers during the time off with SEC play coming in January.

What is Pope’s best assessment of what went wrong in New York City?

“Defensively, we gave up 15 points on rejects alone,” the Kentucky head coach explained Monday evening during his call-in radio show. “It’s just so uncharacteristic for us, just going away from where we’re leading the ball screen, right? I had made a huge emphasis about pushing our bigs up to try and get a little bit more of a presence at the point of the screen. When you let teams reject, it’s the worst thing to do, to push up the bigs.

“Out of seven possessions, it was 15 points — all twos and an and-one, a perfect field-goal percentage. There was a lot we didn’t do well. A lot of things that are going to help us get better, and get better faster.”

He actually liked the way things started against the Buckeyes, holding firm in the first 10 minutes — plenty good enough to stay competitive while waiting for the offense to figure itself out. Then it was a disaster finish before halftime, then more of the same after the brea.

“It was interesting. We started the game well, we gave up an early three, but we were pretty solid-ish in the first 10 minutes, and then it started to get away from us,” Pope said. “There were a couple of real issues that we were struggling with. We were really struggling with — you know, it was very uncharacteristic of us, but we give up 15 points on rejects of high ball screens, which is exactly the opposite of what our defense is designed to do. That was really surprising. We took a bunch of different paths, but some of that — this is some that’s on me, some of that is my responsibility — is trying to solve some other things and push up our bigs. It gave us less security. And I was really surprised that we were having the issue we did.”

There were a number of reasons for it, not just one glaring weakness or culprit. You could call it an all systems failure on that end.

“We were getting beat going under on ball screens as the game went on. We threw out some zone, we blitzed some ball screens, but I was really surprised by that,” he said. “You’re just very much surprised that the issue actually arose. And it’s probably a bunch of stuff.

“It’s a little bit personnel, it’s a little bit us getting a little extended, it’s a little bit maybe being distracted by other things, maybe some foul issues, but that was clearly — ball screens was an issue for us throughout the night. (Bruce) Thornton was a major issue for us, for sure. And so those are two things that we were trying to address personnel-wise, and dedication-wise, this game-wise.”

Fortunately for the Cats, they have plenty of time to go back to the drawing board and get this thing right.

“We just have to come up with the right answers in the right amount of time.”