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Ohio State's blowout win over Tennessee sets up epic Oregon rematch. It's just a shame it's happening in the quarterfinals

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Ohio State's blowout win over Tennessee sets up epic Oregon rematch. It's just a shame it's happening in the quarterfinals


COLUMBUS, Ohio — Are you not entertained?

No, you’re probably not.

Four College Football Playoff first-round games, four outcomes by at least two scores. Two of those were outright blowouts (in State College and Columbus), a third was a dud made closer with two late touchdowns (in South Bend) and a fourth in Austin featured our only suspenseful fourth-quarter moments (thank you, Clemson).

Here in Columbus, the Buckeyes left us wondering a couple of things after a 42-17 drubbing of Tennessee:

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Why couldn’t they do this against Michigan?

Are they back to being the favorites to win it all?

Perhaps, they are! After all, no other college roster is more talented, as they reminded us Saturday night in capping college football’s first-ever slew of on-campus playoff games.

Let’s take a look at how ugly this got so quickly. Ohio State’s first punt came with four minutes left in the second quarter. Tennessee’s first pass completion came six minutes into the second quarter. Suddenly, it was 21-0 and the more than 25,000 Tennessee fans who made the journey north were left angry and shivering in wind chills of below 20 degrees.

The Buckeyes (11-2) showed what they can do when they’re cooking and, boy, were they cooking. By cooking, we mean targeting two of the most explosive and talented receivers in the country. Jeremiah Smith and Emeka Egbuka tore through the Vols for 11 catches and nearly 200 yards.

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Ohio State's Will Howard had one of his best games of the year Saturday, completing 24 of his 29 passes for 311 yards and two touchdowns. (Jason Miller/Getty Images)

Ohio State’s Will Howard had one of his best games of the year Saturday, completing 24 of his 29 passes for 311 yards and two touchdowns. (Jason Miller/Getty Images)

Toss in an Ohio State defensive front that swarmed first-year starter Nico Iamaleava and the Buckeyes were well on their way to a win that should lower the heat on the Ryan Day Pressure Cooker, from boiling to less boiling. Afterward, even Day acknowledged that he and the coaching staff called Saturday’s game “more aggressively” than that last outing here against Michigan.

“You’re defined by the way you handle adversity in life,” he said. “To see the way they responded, they had a look in their eye.”

Up next: a rematch against Big Ten champion Oregon in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day — a glorious matchup of a team with college football’s best resume against a team with college football’s most talented roster.

Last time they met, back in October, the Ducks won 32-31 on a last-second finish in a thriller in Eugene. Whether these two should be meeting again so early in a 12-team playoff is certainly a question worth pondering.

But, alas, that’s what the format giveth. Instead of seeding teams based on the CFP selection committee’s rankings, the format calls for the four highest-ranked conference champions to be seeded Nos. 1-4 — a rule that, while understandable as an incentive for league champs, creates unbalanced seeding.

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For instance, the committee’s No. 6-ranked team, Ohio State, was seeded eighth and now is pitted against the top seed in the quarterfinals. Look for the format to undergo changes, potentially starting with this very seeding rule that grants byes to only conference champions, as explained in this story last week.

But back to those blowouts.

The ACC got knocked out in the first round, its champion downed by the SEC’s runner-up and its runner-up crushed by the Big Ten’s runner-up (if you’re debating conference strength, those results should be helpful). The Big Ten’s third-best team took down the SEC’s third-best team in Columbus. And Notre Dame quite easily handled the Big Ten’s fourth-best team.

In all, the winners scored 145 points and the losers 68. All higher seeds and home teams won.

Chalk, is what they call it.

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This doesn’t necessarily mean these teams — SMU and Indiana, in particular — should have missed the playoff field. Perhaps it only means that, in college football at least this year, the separation between those great teams and those good teams is a wider gap than we first realized.

This isn’t completely new. Don’t you remember all those CFP semifinals the last decade? Fourteen of the 20 semifinal matchups resulted in outcomes of at least two scores. Eight of those were at least three-touchdown blowouts.

It happens.

But what it does tell us, as someone here in the Ohio Stadium press box whispered to this writer, “Maybe this will show everyone that we shouldn’t expand anymore.”

Fourteen teams? Sixteen?

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Maybe not.

The College Football Playoff quarterfinals are set. (Hassan Ahmad/Yahoo Sports)The College Football Playoff quarterfinals are set. (Hassan Ahmad/Yahoo Sports)

The College Football Playoff quarterfinals are set. (Hassan Ahmad/Yahoo Sports)

And it’s now up to Boise State and Arizona State to prevent a nightmare for many college football fans and stakeholders: an All-SEC/Big Ten/Notre Dame semifinal.

The Sun Devils meet Texas in the Peach Bowl, and the Broncos tangle with Penn State in the Fiesta. Boise State and ASU were ranked No. 9 and No. 12 by the committee but got the third and fourth seeds because of that pesky conference title rule we earlier mentioned.

Can they deliver? As underdogs against the sport’s big brands, they’ll have plenty across the country rooting for them.

Meanwhile, in Pasadena, we’ll get what many expected in the preseason to maybe be a national title game matchup: Oregon vs. Ohio State.

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It’s a mouthwatering duel, backdropped by the sunset over the San Gabriel Mountains. In fact, as midnight struck here in Columbus, Rose Bowl officials readied dozens of single cut roses to be handed to Ohio State players and coaches.

What a difference that three weeks makes, huh? The last game here ended in an embarrassing midfield flag-planting brawl and a shocking loss to three-touchdown underdog Michigan — a fourth consecutive defeat to the Wolverines in this heated rivalry series and one that seemed to turn off some fans here.

“You don’t just move on from the game,” Day said. “You identify the issues and let the players speak. You put a plan together to get these things fixed. To say it doesn’t weigh on you, it does. These guys have a lot of pride.”

Despite efforts from Ohio State administrators, many Buckeyes fans sold away their tickets to this playoff bout. Visiting teams get 3,500 tickets to CFP first-round games. The Vols brought at least 25,000 strong, peppering this 102,000-seat stadium in orange. It was more visiting fans than some long-time Ohio State reporters had ever seen in this venue.

By the start of the fourth quarter, many of them were gone, exiting into the chilly night for the jaunt down Interstate 71 having suffered what was the ugliest of the first-round blowouts. After all, OSU out-gained Tennessee 473-256 in yards and played its third-string — third-string — quarterback in the final minutes.

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As a final goodbye on this cold Saturday night, Ohio State stadium operators played over the speakers a familiar refrain for those in orange: Rocky Top.

Back to Tennessee they went. And off to L.A. go the Buckeyes, deliverers of the most crushing win of this historic weekend in the sport.



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Was a rare bird just spotted in Ohio for the first time?

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Was a rare bird just spotted in Ohio for the first time?


A bird rarely seen in North America was apparently spotted in Northeast Ohio of all places recently.

A lesser frigatebird was seen flying over Sippo Lake near Canton, according to several bird enthusiasts and photographers.

A photographer named Alex Eberts was kind enough to share his photos with ABC 6. You can see them at the top of this page.

Another photographer named Austin Rice posted this photo on Instagram and shared the details of what he saw on the night of May 23 in Stark County.

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If you don’t know much about the lesser frigatebird, a site called eBird.com offers this description:

The smallest of the frigatebirds, but note that the female is larger than the male. Adults are easier to identify than younger birds. Adult males are almost entirely black with a red throat and white spurs emanating outwards from the body onto the wing. Adult females have a black belly and throat, a white breast and hind collar, with similar white spurs on their sides. Juvenile and immature plumages are variable and are best separated from other frigatebirds by size when comparison is possible. Mostly silent except while breeding in oceanic islands. Strongly pelagic during non-breeding season but wind-blown or fatigued birds can be found from continental coasts.

Eberts said in his own Facebook post that the May 23 sighting in Stark County was only the seventh reported sighting of the lesser frigatebird in the contiguous United States. The bird is more likely to be seen near the Indian Ocean, the Southeast Asian seas, Northern Australia to Western and Central Pacific Ocean, according to birdsoftheworld.org.



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Large police presence breaks up fight at Boardman Park

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Large police presence breaks up fight at Boardman Park


BOARDMAN, Ohio (WKBN) — Multiple police departments were responding to the report of a large fight at Boardman Park Sunday evening.

Police told our crew on the scene that they received a call around 8:30 p.m. for a large fight at the park involving over 100 people. Boardman Police Chief Todd Werth said the caller reported someone at the park may have a gun.

Due to the nature of the call, mutual aid was requested for multiple surrounding departments.

Chief Werth said officers determined an argument occurred, but there was no physical altercation. He confirmed there was no gun present.

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No arrests were made and no one was injured.

People were being ushered out of the park and the park director shut down the park for the night.

Boardman Township officials say they appreciate the quick response of local law enforcement.

Dominic O’Brien contributed to this report.

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UCLA Could Flip Top 2027 QB Away From Ohio State

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UCLA Could Flip Top 2027 QB Away From Ohio State


Bob Chesney has done a good job at recruiting players from the 2027 high school class.

The 2027 class is Chesney’s first real recruiting class and has so far brought in one of the best in the country, ranking eighth according to 247Sports.

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May 2, 2026; Pasadena, CA, USA; UCLA Bruins coach Bob Chesney reacts during the spring game at Rose Bowl. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

With 19 total commits, Chesney has brought in seven 4-star recruits, with 12 being 3-star, and some being borderline 4-star-caliber recruits who can see a rise in their rankings with a good senior season.

While Chesney has done a good job recruiting players on both the offense and defense, the quarterback has eluded him, and he is still searching for a top quarterback prospect to commit to the Bruins.

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May 2, 2026; Pasadena, CA, USA; UCLA Bruins coach Bob Chesney reacts during the spring game at Rose Bowl. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Luckily for the Bruins, they have had some success in recruiting top players. Recently, the Bruins will get a visit from Colton Nussmeier this weekend, and are now linked to one of the top committed prospects in Brady Edmunds.

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Edmunds As a Prospect

Oct 5, 2024; Columbus, OH, USA; Class of 2027 Huntington Beach, California, quarterback Brady Edmunds visits the field ahead of Ohio State’s 35-7 win over the Iowa Hawkeyes after the NCAA football game at Ohio Stadium. | Lori Schmidt / Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Edmunds is a 4-star prospect and, according to 247Sports, the 16th-ranked quarterback and the 17th-ranked player in the state of California.

247Sports Director of Scouting Andrew Ivins describes the 6’5 “quarterback as an experienced pocket passer with a prototypical build that can drive the ball around the field. Edmunds is also capable of escaping from the pocket to pick up a first down with his legs, and is even compared to Tyler Van Dyke from SMU.

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Brady Edmunds was at Ohio Stadium to watch the Ohio State Buckeyes take on the Michigan Wolverines in an NCAA football game on Saturday Nov. 30, 2024. | Lori Schmidt / Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Coming from Huntington Beach, California, during his junior season, he led Huntington Beach to an 8-3 record while throwing for 2,724 yards, 32 TDs, and only two INTs on 196-for-288 passing. He also ran the ball 54 times for 147 yards and four TDs.

Ivins does think that while he is very talented, he might need a year to sit behind an experienced quarterback to learn the speed and physicality of the game. If he were to commit to UCLA, he would already have that covered, as Nico Iamaleava would have one more year of eligibility after next season.

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Edmunds and UCLA

May 2, 2026; Pasadena, CA, USA; UCLA Bruins coach Bob Chesney reacts during the spring game at Rose Bowl. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
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Edmunds has been off the market since 2024, when he committed to Ohio State under Chip Kelly. Since Kelley’s departure after the Buckeyes championship season, Edmunds has kept his recruitment open while still committed to Ohio State.

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UCLA first offered him back in early 2024, when Deshaun Foster was the head coach, and, with Chesney as the new head coach, he has been active in Edmunds’ recruitment.

May 2, 2026; Pasadena, CA, USA; UCLA Bruins coach Bob Chesney reacts during the spring game at Rose Bowl. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
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If Chesney is able to steal away a top quarterback prospect from an elite school within the same conference, it would be a massive win for the program.

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