NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Numbers have fueled Ohio State all year.
There was 29-23, the score of last season’s painful playoff loss to Clemson.
Six, the number of games the Buckeyes played in this pandemic-altered season, which a lot of people thought was too few for them to deserve a return trip to the College Football Playoff.
Then there was No. 11, where Clemson coach Dabo Swinney placed Ohio State on his ballot in the final regular-season coaches’ poll.
In a rematch with Swinney’s Tigers in the Sugar Bowl, Justin Fields and the Buckeyes had Clemson’s number.
Fields threw six touchdown passes to outshine Trevor Lawrence, and No. 3 Ohio State buried the second-ranked Tigers 49-28 in the Sugar Bowl semifinal Friday night.
“Everybody doubting us just pushed us a little more,” Fields said.
The Buckeyes (7-0) head to the CFP title game for the first time since the inaugural playoff to face No. 1 Alabama on Jan. 11 at Hard Rock Stadium in South Florida. Ohio State beat the Crimson Tide in the semifinals on the way to the 2014 national championship.
Buckeyes coach Ryan Day called it a statement game for the program.
“I think this performance, not only by Justin, but this team, hopefully will go down in Ohio State history as a landmark game,” Day said. “Because we want to go on to win the national championship. But there was a lot of tough days, a lot of tough days over the last six months.”
In a matchup of quarterback prodigies from Georgia, Fields might have given the Jacksonville Jaguars something to think about with that first pick in the NFL draft. Lawrence is the presumptive No. 1, but Fields outplayed him on this night, going 22 of 28 for 385 yards. He set a Sugar Bowl record for TD passes and did it playing more than half the game after taking a vicious shot to the side that forced him to miss a play and spend time in the medical tent.
Lawrence was 33 of 48 for 400 yards and three total touchdowns in what is expected to be the junior’s final college game.
“We were confident and prepared,” he said. ”This was just one of those nights.”
Lawrence’s final pass was intercepted, but Clemson (10-2) finished 34-2 in his starts and won a national title when he was a freshman.
The third meeting between Clemson and Ohio State in the playoff, and fourth bowl matchup since the 2013 season — all Clemson wins — was a game the Buckeyes had been pointing toward ever since that 29-23 loss in the Fiesta Bowl last year.
